Abstract

This article discusses entrepreneurship in a depleted community in transition. The purpose is to develop knowledge about how discourses are used in the positioning of identity in regional development. The concept positioning illustrates how identities are provoked, challenged, negotiated and moved into identity positions that break away from the idea of imitating successful and wealthy regions; instead, locality, place and history emerge as important resources from where local actors obtain agency and recognize new opportunities. Ethnographic data of a single case were collected over a six-year period between 2005 and 2010. The longitudinal nature of the study made it possible to incorporate how local stakeholders took on new identity positions, while handling their inspiration as well as their frustration. Results show how rural change was conditioned by discourses and how entrepreneurship challenged and reframed dominating structures through interaction between entrepreneurship and community. Four discourses, expressed as dichotomies available to people in this depleted community, illustrate the interactive process of positioning: change vs. traditions, rational vs. irrational, spectacular vs. mundane and individual vs. collective. The results support research emphasizing perspectives that acknowledge interaction between entrepreneurship and context as well as discursive aspects of regional development.

Keywords

Context; positioning; place; rural development; discourse

Published in

Entrepreneurship and Regional Development
2016, Volume: 28, number: 1-2, pages: 76-96

SLU Authors

• Gaddefors, Johan

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Business Administration


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2015.1109002

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/79770