The “Machine of Entrepreneurship”: The Crisis in Portugal and a Critical Discourse Analysis through the Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has made its way into dominant discourse through the production and dissemination of a series of intertwined narratives – “employment is a thing of the past”, “we can’t be tied to the state”, “unemployment is an opportunity” – and its transposition to public policy, non-governmental organisations, schools and universities. Since the emergence of the global crisis, in 2008, and its financial, economic and social impact in Portugal, the “Education for entrepreneurship” has been implemented by several programmes conducted by municipalities, associations, companies, etc. Even schools’ curricula, since de early years, are now including this area under the rules of the Ministry of Education. Within a public sociology, a critical discourse analysis and a participatory action-research, this paper describes and interprets an experience with the Theatre of the Oppressed, more concretely a performance called “The machine of entrepreneurship”, aiming at contributing to the deconstruction of the discourse of “entrepreneurship” – its strategies, objectives, contexts as well as its contradictions – and also promoting a critical education perspective. Research findings show the ideological nature of the entrepreneurship discourse; its role on changing forms of exploitation, dominance and control in society, moving from a classical meaning to a more seductive one; and especially the ways by which the “education for entrepreneurship” has been taking the place of “education for citizenship” in schools.