1st Edition
The Anthropology of Entrepreneurship Cultural History, Global Ethnographies, Theorizing Agency
The Anthropology of Entrepreneurship provides a comprehensive overview of the unique contribution from anthropology to the field of entrepreneurship studies.
Insights from anthropology illuminate the wider socio-cultural implications of entrepreneurialism, a moral order and social practice that is profoundly shaping contemporary society. Revisiting classic works in anthropology from a new angle, this book provides an exciting introduction to diverse conceptual framings of economic agency. The author also examines a wide range of 21st century ethnographies from the Global South, alongside his own research from across Europe. Readers meet ordinary people struggling with new social landscapes, including neoliberal urbanism, informal credit, heritage marketing, social enterprising, gift competition, and silicon utopias. With sensitivity to different theoretical, temporal, and ethnographic perspectives, the author presents a thorough cultural history of the entrepreneur―this ubiquitous, yet ambivalent contemporary character.
This important volume will be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, business studies and other related social sciences.
Part I: The Social Life of Entrepreneurship
1. Entrepreneurialism: The First Fifty Years
2. Talking Entrepreneurship
3. Entrepreneurship Studies and Entrepreneurial Academia
Part II: The History of Entrepreneurship in Anthropology
4. Agency-driven Social Change
5. Culture Theories of Entrepreneurship
Part III: Global Contemporary Entrepreneurialism
6. The Social in Entrepreneurship
7. Oppressive Entrepreneurship
8. Entrepreneurialization
Biography
Richard Pfeilstetter is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Seville.
"Are you looking for a concise yet comprehensive introductory book on Entrepreneurship which skillfully adorns theoretical foundations with cutting-edge empirical cases? Look no further." -- Nikolay Domashev in the Journal of Business Anthropology
"For an outsider to anthropology the book provided an engaging and swift tour of the strange history of entrepreneurship studies in anthropology." -- Philip Roscoe, author of Creating Economy (Oxford UP) and A Richer Life (Penguin)
"The book’s discussion of the history of entrepreneurship in anthropology is excellent." -- Joost Beuving in the Journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists
"From Barth's actor perspective and Geertz's cultural history to Pfeilstetter's term “entrepreneurialization” […] Pfeilstetter not only points to new empirical areas, but also to “a theoretical project reinterpreting structural conditions as agentive interventions"." -- Leif Manger in the Norwegian Journal of Anthropology
