The Performative University: 'Targets', 'Terror' and 'Taking Back Freedom' in Academia. Issue 4 (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jones, David R; Visser, Max; Stokes, Peter; Örtenblad, Anders; Deem, Rosemary; Rodgers, Peter; Tarba, Shlomo Y
• Other Names: Jones David R guest-editor.; Visser Max guest-editor.; Stokes Peter guest-editor.; Örtenblad Anders guest-editor.; Deem Rosemary guest-editor.; Rodgers Peter guest-editor.; Tarba Shlomo Y guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Management learning. Volume 51:Issue 4(2020:Sep.)
• Page Start: 363
• Page End: 377
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Alternative organisation -- business schools -- critical management studies -- higher education -- performativity -- universities; Industrial management -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Executives -- Training of -- Periodicals; Organizational learning -- Periodicals; Knowledge management -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/1350507620927554
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1461-7307

Abstract

This special issue assembles eight papers which provide insights into the working lives of early career to more senior academics, from several different countries. The first common theme which emerges is around the predominance of 'targets', enacting aspects of quantification and the ideal of perfect control and fabrication. The second theme is about the ensuing precarious evocation of 'terror' impacting on mental well-being, albeit enacted in diverse ways. Furthermore, several papers highlight a particular type of response, beyond complicity to 'take freedom back' (the third theme). This freedom is used to assert an emerging parallel form of resistance over time, from overt, planned, institutional collective representation towards more informal, post-recognition forms of collaborative, covert, counter spaces (both virtually and physically). Such resistance is underpinned by a collective care, generosity and embrace of vulnerability, whereby a reflexive collegiality is enacted. We feel that these emergent practices should encourage senior management, including vice-chancellors, to rethink performative practices. Situating the papers in the context of the current coronavirus crisis, they point towards new forms of seeing and organising which open up, rather than close down, academic freedom to unleash collaborative emancipatory power so as to contribute to the public and ecological good.