Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India by Lilly Irani (review)

In 2017, the South Korean government presented a policy slogan “I-Korea 4.0” based on its foundational aims of “intelligence,” “innovation,” “inclusion,” and “interaction.” According to policy makers, the policy brand is a combination of four values that begin with the same syllable, meaning “human (人)” and pronounced “in” in Korean, emphasizing that it will lead to a fourth industrial revolution through human-centered innovative growth. Reflecting on past mistakes in neglecting to address social problems or improve the quality of people’s lives due to the pursuit of uneven economic growth, the government vowed to “take the fruits of economic growth to a ‘human-centered economy’ where all people enjoy the fruits of economic growth together” through innovation (Presidential Committee 2017). If so, in what way do the values of “innovation,” “inclusion,” and “human-centeredness” legitimize one another? Who in a global society has the power to imagine and talk of the values of “innovation,” “inclusion,” and “human-centeredness” that are prevailing not only in Korea but also around the world? An interesting new book by anthropologist Lilly Irani, Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India, seeks critical answers to these questions through a historical study of development policy in India and fieldwork in design studios.

The purpose of Irani’s book is not to explore the factors that led to the creation of innovative companies in India, but instead she attempts an anthropological approach to the notion of innovation. Rather than imposing any static meaning on the term, Irani calls for the concept of innovation to be viewed as “categories forged through efforts by state and capital to manufacture common sense” (21). By tracing the practices of governments and corporations, NGOs, philanthropies, pedagogues, designers, and the like seeking solutions to India’s social problems, such as poverty, Irani sees their activities as a process of the emergence and operation of what she calls entrepreneurial citizenship. The entrepreneurial citizen, who belongs to “an imagined community of consumers, beneficiaries, and fellow entrepreneurs,” emphasizes that all members of society from various backgrounds have the potential to significantly change their lives as innovators in a positive way (1). Their potential is shaped by the social relationships, empathy, and political hopes held by the Indian middle class being subsumed into experimental projects to create value. Irani’s anthropological approach is of great significance in that the numerous practices undertaken in the name of innovation to address social problems have selectively supported the aspirations and projects of certain people, while simultaneously excluding others.

The book begins with an analysis of how expectations for entrepreneurship have changed with the growth of the middle class within the historical context of the political economy in India. In chapter 2, Irani describes how the entrepreneurial citizen became a national hero not only as “a captain of business,” but “also as a captain of ‘inclusive growth’” (24). India’s uneven economic growth has begun to emerge as an important social problem as the government has increasingly relied on the private sector for its policy success since the 1980s. Since the mid-2000s, the government and business elites have sought solutions to the social problems of economic inequality from the activities of entrepreneurial citizens who create wealth by developing goods and services for the poor. Contrary to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas, which imposed the burden of social responsibility on entrepreneurs by viewing industrialists as trustees of the public, the entrepreneurial citizen not only helps the poor but also seizes on the opportunity to create wealth on their own by developing goods and services for the marginalized. For instance, the people’s science movement, open source, and the appropriate technology movement were the main activities that entrepreneurial citizens engaged in. These movements gained legitimacy from society as a whole, including the critics of capitalism, as a new model of innovation that expanded the scope of entrepreneurship that had traditionally been limited to high-tech sectors or business...