11 On vulnerability and possibility in critical entrepreneurship education

Mutual learning between students and teachers

Anna Wettermark, André Kårfors, Oskar Lif, Alice Wickström, Sofie Wiessner and Karin Berglund

Introduction

Every time we go in to teach we take a deep breath before entering the classroom and remind ourselves that one or two students in there are likely to know more about the subject than we do. This could be because of their previous experiences and knowledge, or because their gaze from the outside is sharper than ours. At times this exposure of our vulnerability is intimidating for us – we want to be “good”, knowledgeable teachers who make a real contribution. At other times we see outstanding students as a resource and a source of inspiration. Which interpretation comes more naturally depends, we think, on how secure we feel on the topic, but also on how the students function as a group – whether they are defensive and competitive, or curious and willing to share their learnings. In this chapter we will report on a course in which the latter state emerged, and we will suggest that it is precisely because of the presence of those outstanding students that we, as teachers, have the opportunity to learn and develop our courses. We will also suggest that a similar logic of seeing the encounter with others as an opportunity for development can, and should, be incorporated into the teaching of entrepreneurship – not least because entrepreneurship is often circumscribed as creative, curious and open-minded, as an activity to explore new paths or disclose “new worlds” (Spinosa et al., 1999).

A second aspect of vulnerability that we wish to discuss in this chapter is how to meet students who display the opposite tendencies, who do not want to embrace more reflective aspects of entrepreneurship but prefer to centre on issues of “how to be an entrepreneur”. Their scepticism and reluctance to interrogate entrepreneurship exposes us to another kind of vulnerability: a feeling of behaving “wrongly”, of not “giving” students what they want. In this chapter we will view these forms of vulnerability as interconnected, and will discuss them both. We will also invite students from a course in critical entrepreneurship that we taught to present their experiences and their impressions of vulnerability, in themselves and in others. From their voices we can follow how theories on the entrepreneurial self that we used on the course gave rise to queries and frustration, but also how they spurred students to reflect upon “others” as those whom social entrepreneurs strive to assist, their “beneficiaries”.

We start this chapter with a description of the learning processes that evolved during the “Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurial Self”¹ course in which we wanted to encourage students to reflect critically on entrepreneurship, with a focus on vulnerabilities in selves and in others. We then present and discuss some essays that students handed in as part of their course exams, and in doing so reflect on the learnings students have extracted from the course. In the subsequent section we pass the word over to the students and invite them to elaborate on their experiences from the course, thereby adding the perspective of learning, not only teaching, entrepreneurship. In the final sections we reflect, as teachers and students, on our experiences from the course and what they tell us about vulnerability in ourselves and in the others of entrepreneurship. Our purpose with this chapter is thus twofold: we want to develop our thoughts on vulnerabilities and possibilities in teaching entrepreneurship, and we also wish to include the reflections of students who showed involvement during the course, as we believe that a focus on mutual learning is important.

Teaching entrepreneurship: standing still while moving reflectively?

In our course on critical perspectives of entrepreneurship there are no given answers; no one is right and no one is wrong, neither teacher nor student. That does not necessarily mean that vulnerability is “done away with”, or that this would be one of our objectives – vulnerability, as we see it, is not finite but may take different shapes and have varying origins. On the contrary, we wish to create a social space for thinking about this amorphous vulnerability, a space that is reflective and honest, yet secure and respectful of others, and that thus invites and makes possible the posing of difficult questions. At the same time we want to prevent this space, our classroom, from turning into a venue for the expression of opinions or emotions that better belong in other fora – to ensure that no one is hurt and those who are willing to take on the challenges find a room for reflection. This implies that interpretations and experiences that we discuss in this space can be more or less theoretically founded, and our reflections more or less anchored in personal experiences. The aim of the course is to encourage the development of both these aspects in students: a theoretical awareness that includes individual reflections and insights, so as to enable students to not only be theoretically knowledgeable and assume critical perspectives, but also to develop an understanding about the practical and relational challenges that this may involve, that is to “embody” their knowledge.

Since we have previous experience of teaching the course, we enter classes with certain preconceptions. We are aware that, whereas some students are likely to respond positively to the challenges of the course and the creative possibilities it offers, others are likely to resist its theoretical approach. We are also aware that there are processual dimensions of learning in motion during the course; students who have previously started off in a constructive manner have then experienced confusion and disbelief in the middle of the course when more critical theories are presented, but most have been able to integrate their impressions at the end of the course. As teachers we have discussed these experiences and how we can accommodate students, so as to allow them to express their confusion, doubts and scepticism – and their vulnerability – while ensuring that they meet the performance criteria of the course. Building on the theories of Brown (2010, 2012), we developed a feeling that “standing still” was important, by which we meant both a belief that what we were doing was important and something we should pursue in the approach of the course, but also that we must provide room for students to resist and meet them as individuals. We thus engaged with Brown’s ideas that vulnerability and shame are two sides of the same coin. When we feel students’ questioning attitudes, this not only awakens our vulnerability as teachers but also triggers thoughts of shame. We may then experience feelings of “what did I do wrong?”, “I should probably adapt to their requests?”, “I need to pretend that they are on board” or “no one needs to know about this failure”. We thus understand shame as a general human emotion that washes over us, making us feel small, imperfect and not good enough, and we see vulnerability as an exposure to others and to their validation or rejection of our ideas (Brown, 2010; Ibarra, 1999). Brown here uses the concept of “shame resistance”, which can be expressed in three ways (see Hartling in Brown, 2010, p. 77). The first is to avoid the shame by “hiding” – becoming quiet, keeping things secret, e.g. by suggesting a break, or “running” from the classroom after the lecture, to make oneself inaccessible to students. A second way is to go with the shame, which means pleasing people and winning approval, e.g. by making a joke of the “troubling news” that has been addressed or asking what students want and moving along with their wishes. A third option is to protest, control others through aggressiveness, and fight shame with shame, e.g. by lashing out at a student for saying something “stupid”. Brown does not argue for any of these responses, but for learning about one’s own reactions of shame and vulnerability, and embracing them. Standing still. Allowing these bodily and emotional reactions to take place – within us – then, when they no longer have a hold on us, we can react with more awareness. This may take five minutes, or 15, or it may last until the next lecture. But, as both of us participated in all the sessions, it was easier for us to “stand still”, feeling the silent support of a colleague.

We start our course “gently” with exercises focusing on popular images and narratives of entrepreneurship – exercises that are meant to be “fun” and to stimulate the creativity and collaboration of students. Soon, however, the teaching becomes more challenging and students are introduced to theories of, for example, Bröckling (2016) and Jones and Spicer (2009), and a number of scientific articles that examine entrepreneurship from critical, multidisciplinary perspectives. For many students these are novel ways of conceptualizing entrepreneurship, which they perhaps did not expect to come across on a management course. Before we begin teaching, students are therefore informed that the course is not about starting your own company, nor about what characterizes successful entrepreneurs. They are instead presented with the idea that the course builds on a philosophical approach to questions that affect large parts of our lives, whether working lives or private lives. We find this “forewarning” to students helpful as it calibrates expectations and prepares students for the fact that they are about to meet a different view of entrepreneurship. We also emphasize that the course may contribute to giving them a better grounding to deal with complex issues – and thus train them to engage in reflexive decision-making, similar to Schön’s idea of the reflective practitioner (1984). At the same time, the importance of this philosophical approach is signalled, and it is underlined that the course is integrated into the master’s programme and that students will have to relate to the content of the course further on in the programme. If, once we begin, students find the approach of the curriculum challenging, or that it extends beyond the normal scope of business school courses, we strive to confirm them in their impressions. Yes, this is a demanding course, covering areas that may be unfamiliar and controversial; areas that call into doubt the very conception of who we are as individuals and who we desire to be. But also, yes, you can do this, and one of the purposes of the course is to open up for an examination of societal issues from new perspectives. From these new perspectives you may be able to reflect on your experiences, see patterns in society and critically examine ideas taken for granted of who you strive to be and what forms you into that person. Vulnerability, or the subject’s exposure to others, hence sneaks in through the back door, in a generic but nonetheless challenging way.

On the course, students are asked to problematize the two critical turns of entrepreneurship (see Chapter 8 in this volume) and to reflect upon the differences between a conventional reading of the entrepreneur and a more inclusive and socio-discursively based view of the entrepreneurial self. These ideas are put into a historical context by leaning on theories on power and neo-liberal governmentality (e.g. Foucault, 1978; Rose, 1989). Students are introduced to the principle of potentiality (Costea, Amiridis & Crump, 2012), to the concept of the entreployee (Pongratz & Voss, 2003) and to ideas of an inclusive and caring capitalism (Vrasti, 2012) that, through its flexibility and persuasiveness, becomes uncriticizable, and from which neo-liberal subjects may have difficulties in distancing themselves. Students are thus expected to develop a sociological understanding of entrepreneurship as a historically, culturally and socially contingent phenomenon that has taken different forms throughout history and in contemporary entrepreneurial society has exploded into multiple forms.

We then go on to suggest that conflicts, emotions and a sense of vulnerability are integral parts of entrepreneurship. From the notion of a socially inclusive entrepreneurship and from the suggestion that “everyone can be an entrepreneur” to the more imperative “everyone should be an entrepreneur”, we encourage students to investigate distinctions between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs and possible conflicts of interest between them. We ask the question that if everyone can be entrepreneurial, where then do we draw boundaries between selves (entrepreneurs) and others (non-entrepreneurs) and with what consequences? Through questions such as these, students are to consider ethical dimensions of inclusion and exclusion, and distinctions between selves and others. The relationships between the self (understood as the entrepreneurial self), the desired self (understood as the ethos of the endlessly active, capable and responsible ideal entrepreneur) and others (understood as the less entrepreneurial beneficiary who needs support from social entrepreneurs) are then explored in discussions and voluntary seminars that build on the course literature. The self is portrayed as subjected to a neo-liberal ideology, as striving towards the (impossible) fulfilment of external and internal expectations, reaching towards its potentiality, its desired self, or – to lean on Lacan – its Ideal-I (Jones & Spicer, 2009). We point out that during the first critical turn, when entrepreneurship becomes “green” or “social”, conflicts tend to be external, located in clashes of interests between different actors. But when entrepreneurial identities and ideals are questioned, during the second critical turn, conflicts frequently transform and become internalized, related to ideals and values. In the complex and tension-ridden relationship between what one is and what one wishes to be, the literature that we lean on suggests that a discrepancy may emerge between the self-view of the entrepreneur and the idealized self. To use a Lacanian allegory, the self and the image of the self that appears in the mirror are never quite the same. The closing of this gap between self-understanding and self-aspiration then appears as somewhat of a mission impossible, and in the split mirror image the futile, illusionary quality of striving to reach the moving target of a neo-liberal ethos takes shape (Jones & Spicer, 2005).

Students are then introduced to the possibility that the relationship between the (entrepreneurial) self and its desired self (ethos) may be coloured by narcissist motives and emotional drive, by an ambition to prove oneself, to perpetually strive to become “more” (Costea et al., 2012; Goss, 2005). Selves hence run the risk not only of overburdening themselves in their efforts at self-optimization (Bröckling, 2016) but also of “forgetting” others – others that are pushed to the margins of entrepreneurial attention, and that turn into a grey, faceless mass of “beneficiaries” of social entrepreneurship activities; mostly needy, unprivileged, far away, out of sight and reach. But this self-centredness, according to a neo-liberal ideology that treasures affective competencies and welcomes the initiatives of social entrepreneurs to alleviate social ills (Vrasti, 2012), is an inherent weakness, a crack in the image of the entrepreneurial self. In order to live up to the neo-liberal ethos, socially conscious entrepreneurs may have to venture out into society and find some others whom they can care about, so as to prove their entrepreneurial competence. By doing so, by responding to the call for a caring capitalism, social entrepreneurs find themselves entangled in an ideology that repeatedly and persuasively reproduces images of an ever more human, (com)passionate capitalism (Vrasti, 2012).

At this point, students are introduced to the ethics of Lévinas (1969) and a philosophy that purports to foster recognition, responsibility and an interest in the Other. The face of the Other must be seen, Lévinas argues, in real-life person-to-person encounters – encounters that overthrow and destabilize the self. The face of the Other in front of us, Lévinas contends, calls us into responsibility and into being. However, if the self is to be impacted by the Other, it must accept the Other in her alterity, without comparisons with the self and without expectations for reciprocity, or motives of self-confirmation (Spivak, 1987). The Other, then, holds an at least temporary primacy over the self, and the purpose of striving to understand the Other should not only be to get to know her, and to learn about her, but to learn from her (Spivak, 1987). If one succeeds in this, the Other may transform from the problem that she is often portrayed in the management discourse as being (e.g. Chakrabarty, 2002), from an obstacle to a smoothly running business, from a Lacanian object of dis-identification (Jones & Spicer, 2009) or from a security threat to society (Berglund & Skoglund, 2016) to an empowered entrepreneurial subject of identification and a potential source for the self’s development and transgression (Butler, 2005).

In parallel with this theoretical trajectory, students engage in practical social entrepreneurship projects so as to have an opportunity to encounter others, “other” others, that they would possibly not have met in “normal” circumstances. By involving students in these practical projects, we want to make them think about what they can do for vulnerable groups, and to reflect upon their own vulnerability and how it may be linked to the strivings of the entrepreneurial self to reach her potential – and the potentiality of others. This attention to the vulnerabilities of others may not be explicitly expressed, in order not to evoke resistance, but nevertheless impels students to consider aspects of relations between entrepreneurial selves and their others. In previous courses, students have come into contact with societal issues through working in soup kitchens, preparing food for the homeless in collaboration with the Salvation Army, making a promotional video for an animal rights organization, visiting a home for the elderly to inform the residents about Internet security or encouraging newly arrived immigrants to join in sporting activities. These projects provide occasions for students to reflect on moral dilemmas and the (explicit or implicit) conflicts that the encounter with others may give rise to – aspects that we ask students to reflect upon in their project reports. In these reports, some students elaborate on dilemmas of priorities, reminding us of Derrida’s undecidability (1993), in which they are left without guidelines on how to behave. Other students comment on how uncomfortable they feel in the encounter with the vulnerability of others – they note not only the gratefulness of others, but also their reverence, submissiveness and surprise that business students are interested in them (as others). In their projects, students thus catch glimpses of another set of subjectivities than those available to them, and encounter the idea of ethics as a practice, enacted in daily activities (Dey & Steyaert, 2016). In our discussions of the projects we strive to openly address the vulnerability that many of us sense when engaging in social entrepreneurship. We show students a TEDTalk by Brené Brown and discuss with them issues of emotions and conflicts in entrepreneurship in an effort to counteract the “numbing” effects of suppressed vulnerability and to support an acceptance for the fact that entrepreneurship may involve a willingness to risk oneself, to share one’s emotions and to lay bare one’s vulnerabilities (Brown, 2012).

Learning entrepreneurship: essays on the relationship between selves and others

In this section we focus on the work of the students and what they have learned during the course. We start by presenting the final essays of four top-scoring students; we describe the main themes of their individual papers and conclude with a short summary. Through this selection we obviously give a voice to those who have coped well with the requirements of the course and, while being aware of the bias this introduces, we feel it is important to underline the quality of these students’ work. They are, however, not unique in their achievements, as the majority of students taking part in the course show an ability to reflect productively on the contents of the course. What makes these four students stand out is their ability to integrate theories and approaches of the course, and their willingness to take part in dialogues.

The four essays that we chose circle around an exploration of whether an ethically sensitive entrepreneurship is possible under a prevailing neo-liberal ideology. Wickström² (2016), for example, problematizes the relations between givers and receivers, or the entrepreneurial self and the Other, in social entrepreneurship. The question she asks herself is if the perspective of the Other, as a cognitive tool, is persuasive enough to challenge power dynamics within the entrepreneurial discourse. How, she wonders, do entrepreneurial acts affect the Other from a power-related point of view, and in what sense do they impact on the agency of the Other, or her ability to act differently than before? Wickström suggests that relations with others should, if one follows the ethics of Lévinas (1969), constitute a non-reciprocal relationship in terms of instrumental exchange, where the face of the Other calls one into awareness of the fragility of self while at the same time summoning the self through what it is not. In alternative entrepreneurship one must try to interrogate not only who the Other is but also how we epistemologically construct this Other, as a Western Eurocentric outlook could contribute to a construction tainted by a stereotypic framing shaped by societal discourse. This could then reinforce an asymmetrical relationship between the entrepreneurial subject and the Other, where the latter is prevented from constructing her own sense of subjectivity instead of rendering innovation “with, of, and by the Other” through exchange (Jones & Spicer, 2009, p. 108).

Wickström then continues:

Wickström argues that, in a neo-liberal discourse, the subjectivities available to others become constrained in scope and in influence, as compared to subjectivities of the self, as do the possibilities of others to transgress subjectivities and become what Foucault (1978) calls subjects of their own knowledge. Protecting – and respecting – “the space of the Other”, Wickström continues, is, then, no easy task, as the Other’s voice is channelled through entrepreneurial selves shaped by personal values and with limited knowledge of the others with whom they interact. Wickström’s reasoning here resounds with the theories of Spivak (e.g. 1987) when she calls our attention to the difficulties faced by others in speaking with their own voices, according to their own epistemologies, without being subsumed by politically stronger forces.

Wickström concludes that “the understanding of the Other, together with the overall socio-political context, is lacking within the entrepreneurial construct of self”, and that there is a necessity for the self to demarcate herself through the construction of otherness; the otherness of the Other must thus be maintained. Building on Scharff (2015), Wickström further suggests that “[i]f the constitution of entrepreneurial subjectivities involves othering, exclusionary processes may lie at the heart of neoliberalism”, implying that the neo-liberal discourse and the subjectivities it produces possibly undermine an ethical approach to the Other (Lévinas, 1969).

Kårfors (2016) approaches a similar dilemma when he tackles the question of whether alternative entrepreneurship and the emergence of a more caring entrepreneurial self have the potential to outweigh exclusionary dynamics in entrepreneurship. He writes that, within “conventional” entrepreneurship (Berglund & Skoglund, 2016), exclusion is highly observable.

Do the egalitarian aspirations of a more caring, moral, humane entrepreneurship then have the necessary force to alleviate problems of exclusion and elitism in entrepreneurship? Kårfors continues:

Kårfors then investigates the role of class, political law and power in the construction of otherhood, and when it comes to the empowerment of others suggests that beneath the “benevolent veneer” of this concept lies the exclusionary force of unequal power relations. By assisting socially marginalized people, he writes, we lessen a basic symptom of their poverty and direct our attention to their predicament, which may be seen as positive. This, however, may – contradictory to our intentions – contribute to a learned helplessness by “cementing [our] own authority and the dependency of [our] clients” (Bröckling, 2016), possibly evoking feelings of shame and weakness in others. Consequently, “an exclusionary counter-attack occurs”, preventing the autonomy of others.

Kårfors’s arguments complement the views of Wickström, as both authors argue that the logic and ideology of entrepreneurship are predicated on the deviance, inferiority and exclusion of the Other – cast as a distinctly different, non-entrepreneurial, antithetic Other. These assumptions then work against responsible and inclusive readings of alternative entrepreneurship and evoke a need to problematize by what means and through which mental mechanisms we demarcate boundaries between selves and Others, between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, between those who are “good enough” to uphold desirable societal functions in the wake of the welfare state and those who require “fixing” to be able to contribute to society (Ahl & Marlow, 2012).

Lif (2016), in his essay, examines the societal consequences of the prevailing image of the alternative entrepreneur. He conceptualizes the alternative entrepreneurial self as an outcome of a pastoral power that influences subjects to behave and think in ways aligned with the interests of those in power (Foucault, 1978):

Lif’s alternative entrepreneur comes across as preoccupied with, and burdened by, striving to fulfil her potential to the extent that little energy is directed towards other relationships, or objectives that lie outside of the links between the self and the desired self. Lif continues by examining the consequences of this approach:

Interactions with others, and the creation of social utility for the benefit of the Other, thus become desirable for an aspiring entrepreneurial self under a caring capitalism. The alternative entrepreneur, Lif reasons, needs “the other” to justify and legitimize itself, revealing not only a narcissist tendency but also a diversion away from an interest in societal and structural causes of inequalities to more individually focused explanations (Bröckling, 2016; Scharff, 2015).

Wiessner (2016), in a fourth and final essay, focuses on conflicts that arise when engaging in alternative entrepreneurship, such as the conflict between the interest, or space, of the Other and that of an entrepreneurial self, set on reaching self-optimization. She, like her student colleagues, relates changing demands on individuals to an increasingly persuasive neo-liberal ideology:

This, she argues, results in entrepreneurial selves engaging in “showing the less entrepreneurial individuals in society how to take responsibility for their lives and enhance their entrepreneurial qualities”. The use of empowerment as a “universal therapy” for inequalities in society, Wiessner cautions, may be illusionary and not actually concerned with distributing power to those who lack it. Rather, empowerment is based on the belief that by making people feel more powerful, they will choose to advance their entrepreneurial selves, making them less likely to cause problems in society. Again we see how alternative entrepreneurship is aimed at improving societal security, as a form of “defending society from itself”. Wiessner here shows affinity to the reasoning of Kårfors as she relates to the combined neo-liberal interests of the state to govern through the subjectivities of individuals (Rose, 1989), and the interest of these individuals to prove their potentiality and to self-optimize (Costea et al., 2012; Foucault, 1978). More pressure is hence accumulated onto entrepreneurial selves and, as social entrepreneurship is characterized by “individualism and marketing of the self” (Dempsey & Sanders, 2010, p. 454), Wiessner argues, this “begs the question if social entrepreneurship is just ultimately the sugar coated version of the entrepreneurial self in search of a new level of self-fulfilment”.

If social entrepreneurs engage in social entrepreneurship as a means of reaching higher on a ladder of neo-liberal achievements, then “the motives of the social entrepreneurs become not just an internal conflict but an ethical one as well”, she reasons. For, if social entrepreneurship is to be ethical, it must focus upon the interest of others, and how entrepreneurs, in the actual doing of social entrepreneurship, engage in moral dilemmas and try to find a balance between the interests of selves vis-à-vis those of others (Dey & Steyaert, 2016).

In our interpretation, as teachers, some common threads appear in these essays; all four students avoid getting stuck in “impossible” questions, such as what the “real” motives are for engaging in social or alternative entrepreneurship. Wickström, Kårfors, Lif and Wiessner skilfully navigate past this ground and instead take a step “outwards”, directing their attention towards more structural aspects and their societal consequences. They identify tensions and inconsistencies in the entrepreneurial discourse and juxtapose narratives of an active, autonomous, competitive entrepreneur, fulfilling herself and the needs of society in one go, with claims that entrepreneurship should be responsible, respectful of others, socially inclusive and compassionate. “Are these two narratives compatible?” the students ask themselves, albeit from their individual analytical platforms. In what circumstances, in what respects, are they, or are they not, achievable? The students strive to go beneath the surface, they scrutinize “the benevolent veneer” or “the sugar coated surface” of entrepreneurial discourses, and search for different layers, and perspectives not usually adopted, such as those concerning the vulnerabilities of others. As teachers we note that the perspective of the course here equips students to develop a critical awareness, and, by extension, to act differently and make decisions that may alter social practices and relations between selves and others.

In the following section we pass the word over to the students, to the writers of the four essays analysed above, to let them express their reflections on their learning experiences from the course.

Students’ reflections on their learnings

In retrospect, we feel that the course has made an impression by challenging our mainstream understanding of entrepreneurship. Instead of being considered as a highly desirable role by virtue of its embodying attractive traits such as creativity, ambition and business acumen, the figure of the entrepreneur may just as easily be conceived as an unattainable ideal. The course allowed us to further evaluate this by studying the notion of subjectivity and its connection to entrepreneurship, from the perspectives of authors such as Lacan and Foucault. While the aim of enhancing one’s critical thinking abilities is embedded in the core of most business studies, the emphasis on one’s own subjectivity is not. Being encouraged to adopt a critical lens when approaching the concept of the “entrepreneurial self”, we were able to see how this ideal has become an alluring mirage that convinces us that there is always more, and, by logical necessity, never enough.³ As we continue to analyse contemporary neo-liberal society and management from different perspectives in our studies, we are reminded that being entrepreneurial has become an imperative to which we may have to adapt in order to become successful. Indeed, our future employers will probably expect it of us. In the absence of critical awareness, the insidious nature of this striving for perfection is in danger of being obscured by the positive entrepreneurial personality traits.

The concept of the “entrepreneurial self” could be considered highly relatable for anyone in their twenties living in today’s society. However, we came to interpret the concept in different ways. For one of us, the early phase of the course led to a strong urge to resist the effects of how the societal idea of the “entrepreneurial self” might have come to affect now internalized personality traits, such as being energetic, creative and hardworking. While these had previously been highly valued, they started to become the target of criticism in an attempt to escape the feeling of ideological manipulation. However, with time, the person experiencing these doubts realized that this was the wrong path to follow, since it only opened up for more self-criticism and internalized blame. Instead, the insights were used to make a thorough analysis of his own behaviour. And, because of the deeper understanding of this social construct, he holds that most (or all?) of these traits are virtuous, not only in the eyes of the “entrepreneurial self” but also from other moral foundations. Thus, it is important to point out that the general understanding of entrepreneurship as something positive can be highly beneficial for society, especially if one looks historically at other comparatives of dominant ideological ideal types. As the course touched upon some of the mechanisms connected to the underlying logic of the “entrepreneurial self” it opened up for further problematization. This led to a sense of distance towards the absurdity of how the term “entrepreneurship” is sometimes used and exploited in contemporary society, which also generated a sense of sadness when confronted with how subjects can suffer from problematic aspects of this discourse. From this perspective, the critical lens can be seen as useful for further interrogating some of the more problematic aspects of entrepreneurship, such as vulnerability. As we were encouraged to critically re-evaluate the discourse on entrepreneurship from our own subjective perspectives, a certain degree of vulnerability and openness to exploration of ourselves was required. One of us explicitly remembers when our lecturers introduced the concept by showing us a video of Brené Brown talking about her research and explaining that “we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly”. Vulnerability could thus be understood as a way to counteract the pressures of society by embracing our imperfections and being brave enough to show them.

Perhaps, then, entrepreneurship is inimical to vulnerability? The pressure to realize one’s full potential, to constantly focus on cultivating one’s entrepreneurial skills to perfection, a persuasive theme in the entrepreneurship discourse (Bröckling, 2016; Rose, 1996), naturally encourages self-elevation, which is arguably antonymic to the notion of recognizing one’s limitations and imperfections. Juxtaposed with this backdrop, alternative entrepreneurship emerges as a potential means by which we externalize our own vulnerability. Entrepreneurship then becomes a psychological defence mechanism that projects this undesired vulnerability onto a specific target (e.g. the “Other”), which simultaneously allows us to add admirable traits of compassion and conscientiousness to our entrepreneurial personalities.

Students embracing vulnerability

The students’ essays draw our attention to paradoxical and contradictory assumptions in the entrepreneurship discourse, and portray entrepreneurs as somewhat ensnared, caught in a web of expectations which they – so obviously from an outside perspective – cannot possibly fulfil. Entrepreneurs, under the interrogative lens of the students’ essays, appear as squeezed between opting not to see inconsistencies, or “the space of the Other”, continuing with business as usual, and rather uncritically accepting the credo of a caring, inclusive, second-turn form of entrepreneurship offered to them. In a sense, the vulnerabilities of alternative entrepreneurs are unveiled in a theoretical, but nonetheless revelatory way. From the angle of the students’ work, an important question that emerges is whether it is feasible to be a successful entrepreneur, according to a neo-liberal ethos, and to simultaneously show respect for the alterity of the other. This is a question that lays bare the vulnerabilities of entrepreneurial selves, their desires and (emotional) risk-taking. It also leaves us with doubts concerning the Other and how we can see and “act on” the vulnerabilities of others without either reinforcing these vulnerabilities, or impelling others to tread in our own footsteps.

In the students’ interpretations, social entrepreneurship then emerges as a practice of the self (Dey & Steyaert, 2016), and in this practice morality is enacted outside of the obedience to established codes of rule (Derrida, 1993). This we see, for example, in how entrepreneurs, in their daily lives, “bend and breach” norms that impel them to define themselves in particular ways. Entrepreneurs, thus conceived, instead of playing by the rules come across as playing with the rules of the capitalist game as they engage in practices of freedom (Foucault, 1978) in myriads of different ways. Resistance, accordingly and as suggested by Bröckling (2016), arises in an experimenting with how one can be “different differently”: how one can, in conscious and morally informed ways, act on fissures in how things are normally done that make possible one’s own subjectivities and re-interpretations of existing practices – and that embrace, albeit often tacitly, the vulnerabilities of both selves and others.

We think that many students show remarkable progress during the course, confirming our beliefs that students are able and reflective learners. With limited prior knowledge of entrepreneurship, students write essays with a high level of insight and critical awareness. One observation we made during the course, however, was that it seemed easier for students to identify vulnerabilities in others, and to imagine the consequences and reactions this may evoke in others, than to relate to their own vulnerabilities. When asked after the course and for the purpose of this chapter to elaborate on their reflections, the four students whose essays we selected, as we have seen, clearly address their own reactions and vulnerabilities. They also create a link between how the vulnerability of the Other is somehow always connected to “my vulnerability”. Perhaps this mirrors a progression of thought, that we tend to identify vulnerabilities in others sooner than we allow them to surface in ourselves. It could also, we realize, be a consequence of how the course is designed, with little room for the exploration of individual psychological experiences – something that we will bear in mind for future versions of the course.

Teachers embracing vulnerability

There are several experiences that we, as teachers, take away from this course. The first is a reaction of relief: relief that the vulnerabilities that we “put on the table” were handled with care and respect by students. We believe that this relates to our “standing still”, which might not be something that students recognize but which made it possible for us to act in a more thought-through manner – and for students to air their frustrations and feelings of discomfort without being met by defensive reactions from our side. Hence, through embracing shame and vulnerability, we created space for responses that it might be essential for students to express in their “progression” within the course – from enthusiasm to bewilderment and then back to a more integrated position, reflecting a combination of critical awareness and reflective insights, linking selves and others. Perhaps this also explains why, on this particular course, we experienced a greater willingness among students to “go along” with our perspective of entrepreneurship and to explore its consequences.

More importantly, students developed an openness and a willingness to work together. While we are proud of them and impressed by their work, we also bear in mind that this positive outcome has not always been the case. During previous courses, students’ reactions to the curriculum were characterized not only by scepticism but also by internal competition. On occasions these negative reactions made us hesitate to continue with the course – our vulnerabilities as teachers were uncovered, shame was triggered and we were exposed to the vulnerabilities of students when they were unable to cooperate with each other. These experiences prompted us to anchor the course in our personal reflections and to try to foresee – and understand – student reactions. By acknowledging our vulnerability as teachers, by, in a sense, being “unmasked” before the students, we were at the same time aware that we implicitly asked them to do the same – to “unmask”. This possibly created an unspoken, but nevertheless sensed, pressure on them to act and reason like us, which they may have felt unprepared for. Scrutinizing one’s vulnerabilities requires a certain courage and maturity, qualities that we may not expect that students have or are willing to share with us. But, in line with the reasoning of Brown, we simultaneously believe that the suppression of vulnerabilities leads to a numbness that impedes creativity and collaboration. Avoidance of vulnerability may then steer the individual into defensive positions in order to uphold a sense of security, which inserts a distance between selves and others, inhibiting the ability to develop sensitivity to others, and preventing openness towards learning. We also discern this when we strive to “boost” our own academic accomplishments, to enhance our careers, while neglecting to listen to others, such as students.

Perhaps paradoxically, we felt that when we developed an awareness of our vulnerability, shame and exposure to the potential criticism of students we became more sensitive towards their vulnerabilities. In meeting them as our others, a space for exploration emerged which did not encompass all students but enough to create a climate of trust and learning. The students made us realize that the course may be perceived as provocative and that, to a certain extent, we expose their vulnerabilities when we ask them to assume our perspective, to be critical and reflective. This vulnerability may have different sources; for many students, a questioning of the neo-liberal subject, of its active, autonomous, wealth-creating, American dream type of character may be deeply disturbing, and we came to realize that developing other perspectives of this ethos requires time. We have also learned that an exposure to the alterity of others, theoretically as well as in practice, may be emotionally trying. As teachers we may need to consider that we can only invite students to open up for thinking differently about themselves and about entrepreneurship – and to equip them with the necessary analytical means (and to a limited extent the practical opportunities) for doing so.

Experiencing a sense of vulnerability, we have argued, is embedded in entrepreneurship. Suppressing this vulnerability may not only hinder creativity but may also increase the very fear one seeks to handle. Instead, embracing vulnerabilities in the conviction that we have the resources to handle them creates possibilities and builds trust between selves and others. By recognizing vulnerability, and by practising it, we might reach a more balanced approach that opens up for new possibilities. This may not erase our individual drive for potentiality and self-fulfilment, but may transform this drive into a more relational force, into a mutually held principle of potentiality in which we do not focus (only) on individual achievement (Bröckling, 2016), or self-optimization (Foucault, 1978), but on joint efforts – an entrepreneurship “with, of, and by the Other” (Jones & Spicer, 2009), with the aim of bringing about a more collective seizing of opportunities. In the very mundane context of critical entrepreneurship education, such a process might create opportunities for working together with students in developing critical and reflective courses. We believe that such a cooperation can lead to a more profound understanding of how courses in entrepreneurship are perceived and how they can be further developed.

Notes

1 The course is described in more detail in Chapter 8 in this volume. In the version of the course presented in this chapter the themes of “social” and “green” entrepreneurship were replaced by themes of “conflicts” and “relations with others” in alternative forms of entrepreneurship.

2 Minor changes have been made in excerpts from the students’ papers. These changes are mainly of an editorial nature.

3 However, one of us is sceptical to this conclusion and believes its epistemological assumptions do not fully support this normative claim.

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