Construction of the social entrepreneur's role: possible worlds, discourse and the spirit of capitalism

Abstract

This paper derives from a post-doctoral research which deals withthe theme of social entrepreneurship, having as object the discourses, extracted from digital media, which characterize and conceptualize the work of social entrepreneurs. The aim is to analyze the meanings attributed to social entrepreneur, understood as an agent that adjusts to the new spirit of capitalism (Boltanski and Chiapello) by incorporating the social role (Dahrendorf) of transforming crisis scenarios, and simultaneously setting a response to the dismantling of the Welfare State - which is evident in the portuguese context.The theoretical-methodological approach deals with the conceptual paradoxes involving social entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial logic that crosses the imaginary of contemporary capitalism; the notion of social discourse proposed by Angenot; and the multidimensional approachto discourse analysis by Fairclough.