Deirdre Tedmanson

Critical perspectives in entrepreneurship research

In the face of the extraordinary events of the late 2000s ‘global financial crisis’, it may have been expected that some drastic rethink of the unquestioning idealization of the entrepreneur as prototype ‘homo economicus’, all aspirational and risk-taking would flood the world’s media and preoccupy social commentators. One might have expected social, political and business media to pursue empirical research and theoretical analyses seeking out new forms of financial and organizational life to militate against the obscenely unequal, grossly exploitative and boom-crash ethos of market economics. It could equally have been imagined that newly awakened ‘captains of industry’ would

Grass burning under our feet: Indigenous enterprise development in a political economy of whiteness

In this article we discuss some of our findings from two research projects that explore opportunities for Indigenous enterprise development in remote locations in Northern and Central Australia. Based on a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews with Indigenous community leaders, Traditional Owners, government officials, Land Council officials and other stakeholders, we discuss barriers to economic development faced by Indigenous communities in remote regions. We argue that many of these barriers are the material effects of discursive practices of ‘whiteness’ in the political economy. We discuss the relationships between institutions and Indigenous communities that constitute the Indigenous political economy and argue that these relationships are informed by discursive practices of whiteness and colonial-capitalist relations of power. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for management learning and public policy.

Emancipation and/or oppression? Conceptualizing dimensions of criticality in entrepreneurship studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use the attribute “critical” as a sensitizing concept to emphasize entrepreneurships role in overcoming extant relations of exploitation, domination and oppression. It builds on the premise that entrepreneurship not only brings about new firms, products and services but also new openings for more liberating forms of individual and collective existence. Design/methodology/approach – Honing in on Calas et al.s (2009) seminal piece on critical entrepreneurship studies, and building on Laclaus (1996) conceptualization of emancipation as intimately related to oppression, the paper explores different interpretations of emancipation and discuss these from a critical understanding of entrepreneurship. The paper then employs these interpretations to introduce and “classify” the five articles in this special issue. Findings – The editorial charts four interpretations of emancipation along two axes (utopian-dystopian and heterotopian-paratopian), and relates these to vari...

How can country, spirituality, music and arts contribute to Indigenous mental health and wellbeing?

Objective: Mental health and social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) have been linked as outcomes of attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement in music and arts, particularly for Indigenous Australians. It is not clear how this occurs, even though the links seem substantial. Method: We explore how mental health and SEWB may be linked to attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement in music and arts by reviewing literature and presenting examples from our research with Indigenous communities. Rather than abstracting, our goal is to describe specific examples encompassing the rich contextual details needed to understand the factors contributing to mental health and SEWB. Results: While engagement in music is often seen as benefiting mental health because thoughts and feelings can be expressed in less public ways, it can also lead to employment and access to economic and social resources. Attachment to country also shows a plethora of positive outcomes which can contribute to mental health and SEWB even when not explicitly aimed at doing so, such as reducing conflictual situations. Conclusions: We conclude that more detailed, contextual research is required to fully explore the links between creative enterprises and mental health and SEWB outcomes.

Enterprising social wellbeing: social entrepreneurial and strengths based approaches to mental health and wellbeing in “remote” Indigenous community contexts

Objective: Social enterprises are market-based activities that provide social benefits through the direct engagement of people in productive activities. Participation in social enterprise development brings psychosocial wellbeing benefits, by strengthening family networks, enhancing trust, increasing self-reliance and social esteem and promoting cultural safety. Our objective is to explore how social enterprise activities can meet community needs and foster self-sustainability while generating profits for redistribution as social investment into other ventures that aid social functioning and emotional well-being. Conclusions: Social entrepreneurship enhances both interdependence and independence. Concomitant mental health and social wellbeing dividends accrue overtime to communities engaged in self-determined enterprise activities. Social entrepreneurship builds social capital that supports social wellbeing. Strengths-based approaches to social entrepreneurship can assuage disempowering effects of the “welfare economy” through shifting the focus onto productive activities generated on peoples own terms.

Isle of exception: sovereign power and Palm Island

Purpose – This paper aims to trace the genealogy of state violence on Palm Island to argue forms of “colonial” control over Indigenous governance and organisational life persist in Australia. Using Agambens theories of homo sacer, sovereign power and state of exception, the paper seeks to reveal the biopolitical nature of two centuries of abuses against Indigenous Australians. Arguably, past and recent tragedies on Palm Island show how juridico‐political regimes continue to subvert the citizenship and human rights of many Indigenous Australians – their sovereignty, governance structures and organisations. The purpose of the paper is to develop a greater focus in postcolonial writing on current political issues, by combining critical theory with grounded narratives of lived experiences and contemporary events.Design/methodology/approach – Insights from political theorist Agamben are used to critically analyse the management of violence on Palm Island. The paper draws on documents from the public record, s...

Neoptolemus: the governmentality of new race/pleasure wars?

This paper explores the Australian government’s 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) intervention into Indigenous communities, conceptualizing it as a form of neoptolemus or ‘new war’. The paper argues that not only violence but also sexuality is central to the modalities of power in neo‐colonial domination. Using Foucault’s notions of ‘biopolitics’ and the discourses of war from Hobbes to Mbembe, we explore the management, surveillance, and administration of violence, sexuality, and sovereign ‘pleasure’ in the NTER to conceptualize the intervention as a novel form of racialized combat. These new configurations of race/pleasure war reinforce the elements of biopower and population management that have remained foundationally connected to sovereignty within the Western tradition. Governmentality and the bureaucratic and organizational regimes of control enacted through the NTER are correlated with the prurient, sexualized, and intensely moralizing public discourse about Indigenous Australians. The NTER intervention into Indigenous communities is analyzed from a critical perspective. We identify the political economy of neo‐colonial power, the ways in which ‘race power’ is embedded in both organizational and discursive environments, and the links between violence, pleasure, and the state. We analyze how violence, pleasure, and sovereign power intersected to discursively produce a punitive response by the sovereign state to serious issues of abusive behaviors and sexual transgression(s) as ‘new war’ on Indigenous peoples. The paper concludes by conceptualizing ‘new’ links between administrative knowledge, governance, power, sex, race, and violence and argues for the importance of understanding these assemblages of power to the field of organization studies.

An Uncommon Wealth . . .Transforming the Commons With Purpose, for People and Not for Profit!

The overemphasis on individualism in much normative entrepreneurship discourse belies the powerful role played by local level and communal forms of barter, culturally based collectivist models of organization, social enterprise, and other forms of co-investment. Following Rindova et al., we argue innovation in entrepreneurship can be an emancipatory process with broad change potential to bring about new economic, social, institutional, and cultural environments. New forms of productive social relations and cooperative effort generate new ways of liberating individual and collective existence. However, the dark side of entrepreneurialism also casts its shadow over the pursuit of an idealized commons. Romanticizing forms of collective entrepreneurialism as a means for elevating vulnerable groups may have contrary effects, especially for those already socially and economically marginalized. Theorizing entrepreneurship from a critical perspective, we draw on Laclau’s emancipation–oppression dualism. We explore the contradictions and potentialities of locally based communal entrepreneurship as expressions of a dynamic tension, which is simultaneously both transformative and exploitative in orientation.

Dreams and aspirations of mobile young Aboriginal Australian people

This article explores the dreams and aspirations of mobile young Aboriginal Australian people aged between 13 and 25 years, who move in, out and through remote, regional and urban locations. Considering dreams and aspirations in the context of cultural difference is the central focus of this article, which uses a critical and deconstructive approach to the Eurocentric conceptualisation of youth policy terminology in Australia. Participatory and ethnographic techniques were used for this research study which engaged directly with mobile young Aboriginal Australian people. Through exploring the dreams and aspirations of this cohort of participants, this study challenges popular stereotypes depicting young Aboriginal Australian people as delinquent and disengaged. All young participants in this study expressed the dream of wanting to contribute positively to society. Aspirations for the future were expressed and formed by a set of values which were found not to reflect dominant cultural assumptions of successful transitions into adulthood.

Tele-social work and mental health in rural and remote communities in Australia:

Rural and remote communities often have complex and diverse mental health needs and inadequate mental health services and infrastructure. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an array of potentially innovative and cost-effective means for connecting rural and remote communities to specialist mental health practitioners, services, and supports, irrespective of physical location. However, despite this potential, a review of Australian and international literature reveals that ICT has not attained widespread uptake into social work practice or implementation in rural communities. This article reviews the social work literature on ICT, draws on research on tele-psychology and tele-education, and provides suggestions on how to enhance engagement with ICT by social workers to implement and provide mental health services and supports tailored to community values, needs, and preferences that are commensurate with the values of the social work profession.