Entrepreneurship for the rural? A reflection on rural entrepreneurship in a time of multi-crisis

Abstract Rural areas in most of the world are facing a multi-crisis related to climate change, regional inequalities, and increasing political unrest. This calls for rethinking and exploring forms of entrepreneurial action that can engage with these crises. In this conceptual paper, we conduct a Weberian ideal type analysis and suggest that the prevailing ideal types of rural entrepreneurship run the risk of an epistemic fallacy and of inadvertently legitimizing centralizing policies. To address this, we propose a new ideal type of “entrepreneurship for the rural” that highlights the need to engage with issues of spatial justice, which lie at the heart of the conflicts and potentials that constitute the current multi-crisis. The ideal type of “entrepreneurship for the rural” emphasizes institutional and political forms of entrepreneurship that seek to create changes in the structural conditions of regional inequality and spatial patterns of opportunity. Further research into this type of entrepreneurship is recommended.