Entrepreneurial subjectivities and gendered complexities: neo-liberal citizenship in Turkey

Abstract

This contribution explores the promotion of women’s entrepreneurial activities in Turkey. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted during 2011–12 in two civil-society organizations that run programs fostering women’s entrepreneurship, this study shows how neoliberal ideologies interact with ideas of labor, responsibility, and gender. Emphasizing individual rationalities and entrepreneurial attitudes, these civil-society programs contribute to the construction of model subjects of neoliberal citizenship, who are expected to be self-governing and self-sufficient. Yet problems embedded in the neoliberal paradigm and these particular organizations’ commitment to women’s rights produce contradictions in implementation. The goal of entrepreneurial women is predicated on the assumption that women contribute more to their families’ well-being than men. The programs’ attempts to construct potential entrepreneurs out of women for this purpose reveal problems with discourses of individual self-sufficiency and responsibility.