Neoliberal Capacity‐Building as Counterinsurgency in the Peripheries of East Jerusalem and Rio de Janeiro

Abstract This article examines the role of entrepreneurial capacity‐building programmes in the peripheral communities of Rio de Janeiro and East Jerusalem. It analyses how neoliberal social policies advance settler colonial objectives in Global South urban spaces. These initiatives are framed as technical interventions designed to integrate surplus subaltern populations into the market, portraying entrepreneurial training as a means for individuals to meet economic needs and overcome racism. Entrepreneurial practices are shown to operate as key survival strategies for subaltern populations. However, the article argues that such programmes fail to address structural inequalities; instead, they promote individual self‐governance and undermine community solidarity. Functioning as a counterinsurgency strategy, entrepreneurship serves to pacify subaltern groups into a productive working class under neoliberalism. It enables colonisers to govern not only through coercion but also through co‐optation. Yet, the effectiveness of these programmes as counterinsurgency tools is limited by the ongoing genocidal state violence.