A Critique of Rural Entrepreneurship as a Neoliberal Project: Iran as a Case Study

Hassan Shahraki

Hassan Shahraki earned his bachelor‘s degree in Agriculture Machinery from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, a master’s degree in Agriculture Extension and Education from Razi University, Iran, and a PhD in Agriculture Extension and Education from Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran.

He was a visiting researcher at Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, from 2015 to 2016. Currently, he is an assistant professor and the Dean of the Department of Agriculture Extension and Education, University of Zabol, Iran. Shahraki’s main academic interests include the sociology and anthropology of (post)development, rural sociology, sociological analysis of rural entrepreneurship, and the sociology of body and embodiment. Shahraki has expertise in some recent versions of qualitative methodologies like situational analysis (SA), grounded theory (GT), and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

Entrepreneurship in Iran has become the smart guard of uneven development in the city and an unsuitable alternative to rural development. Structural weaknesses in the country’s economic system, as well as the dominance of perception, attitude, and a particular approach to neoliberalism, have caused the development process to move from rural to urban areas after nearly two decades of entrepreneurial development.

The more unbalanced and concentrated the development process becomes, the more naturalized and individualized it becomes, eventually coming to a halt in villages. Taking a critical look at entrepreneurship and rural development, this paper analyzes the relationship between entrepreneurship and development and provides examples with theoretical concepts in Iran. It proposes the concept of rural prosperity rather than neoliberal rural entrepreneurship.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies