The social entrepreneur, an emerging category in Quebec
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22230/cjnser.2018v9n1a280Keywords:
Entrepreneur social, Processus de formalisation et d’informalisation / Social entrepreneur, Process of formalization and informalizationAbstract
Cet article pose un regard critique sur la catégorie de l’entrepreneur social présente dans le paysage socioéconomique québécois contemporain. L’objectif est de comprendre comment les processus de formalisation et d’informalisation de l’État participent à la construction de cette catégorie sociale. Pour ce faire, nous établissons quatre périodicités des dynamiques d’informalisation des services sociaux de l’État depuis les années 1960. Ces dynamiques ouvrent la voie à une ambiguïté grandissante du partage des responsabilités sociales. Ce mouvement d’informalisation cependant n’est ni unidirectionnel ni unidimensionnel. Nous expliquons qu’il s’agit de changements dans des dynamiques de partage de pouvoirs entre les sphères du marché et du communautaire que tente de réguler l’État. Ceux-ci bénéficient à certains acteurs institutionnels et ouvrent la voie à une nouvelle catégorie sociale elle-même empreinte d’ambiguïté : l’entrepreneur social.This article takes a critical look at the category of “social entrepreneur” present in the socioeconomic realm of contemporary Québec. Its objective is to understand how State processes of formalization and informalization contribute to the construction of such a social category. To that end, we describe four consecutive periods in the informalization of social services by the State since the 1960s. These four periods, as they unfold, contribute to an increasing ambiguity regarding how social responsibilities are to be shared. This process of informalization, however, is neither one-directional nor onedimensional. In our article, we observe that it reflects fluctuations in power between market and community that the State has been trying to regulate. These fluctuations benefit certain institutional actors and pave the way for a new, somewhat ambiguous, social category, that of the social entrepreneur.
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