South Africa’s Social Entrepreneurship: Reflections on Its Decolonial Potential

The Anthropocene has seen humanity’s impact and dominance over nature, but also humanity’s dominance over each other: colonisation. South Africa suffered severe colonisation and still faces challenges of coloniality in various sectors of society. This is expressed through racialised, gendered, and ableist poverty; lack of access to public goods and services, etc. To counter these, South Africa’s civil society organisations (CSOs) have sought to influence government and society towards greater socioeconomic development. When colonisers took over foreign territories, they often presented their ideas as solutions to the natives’ problem of backwardness. Considering that the modern model of CSOs is primarily foreign to South Africa, the epistemology and teleology of CSO as a concept must be scrutinised. Do the solutions they offer further colonise South Africa or are they helpful in the country’s decolonisation?

Thus, this study undertakes an Afrocentric analysis of Social Entrepreneurship (SE), a form of CSO in South Africa, to understand the nature and potential of its contributions to decolonising “post-apartheid” South African cities. To achieve this, the study undertakes an African Philosophical Hermeneutics to analysing the epistemology and teleology of SE; and the current Green Paper on the Social Solidarity Economy, which seeks to legislate the work of SE in South Africa. Moreover, this analytical method is applied to other key literature on SE and to 4 empirical case studies in 4 South African cities.

Finally, the study submits that countering coloniality in South Africa requires reconceptualising progress as building a flourishing, not developed society. Flourishing society considers the well-being of its members by using its natural assets, traditions, etc. in equitable ways. This differs from development, which is Westernisation through exploitative economics. Finally, the study argues that SE holds potential for South Africa’s cities to flourish, but various pitfalls must be guarded against.