Calculative Practices of the Rural: Emotionality, Power and Micro-Entrepreneurship Development

This study explores how semantic and moral rules of rural cultures and intrinsic power relations in rural politics constrain the institutionalisation of entrepreneurial ethos and rational calculations in rural economies. It addresses three interrelated research questions: (1)What 'calculative practices' prevail in the rural economy, and how do such practices interplay with rural culture and politics? (2) What 'psychological' meanings and 'moral' factors influence entrepreneurial 'rationality' in rural communities, and how do these influences come about?, (3) What 'inequalities' and 'power relations' constrain rural entrepreneurship, and how do these constraints operate?, and Based on ethnographic narratives and stories gathered from two villages in Sri Lanka, it has found that entrepreneurial development and underlying calculative practices in rural contexts are subject to particular psychological meanings, moral factors, inequalities and power relations.