Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

come would be. The return of his sick leave made that Paul Broersen influenced the
final result still quite strongly, even just before the expiration of the deadline.
I label the interactions involved in the drafting of the performance agreements as
dynamic and complex. In these interactions a host of issues were present: the unpredictable
political process on a national level, the lack of planning, the difference of
opinions and interests, the not yet crystallized effects of a recent reshuffling of faculties
and management of the faculties, and a lack of time. These issues were present in
terms of uncertainty, worries, mutual relations, feelings of hurry and urgency, and of
course in the arguments used to discuss and decide on matters.
From an interventionist perspective on complexity - derived from a Complex Adaptive
System-approach (CAS) – what happens in a system can be labelled as complex if
three or more processes interact and their course is undefined (Zuijderhoudt, 2007).
Within a system things become unpredictable because of the interactions of at least
three processes and within the system new solutions or synergy (Zuijderhoudt, 2007)
evolve as a result of the interactions (self-organization) or are provoked by interventions.
A complex responsive process-perspective on complexity implicates that there is no
logical conclusion or solution for the situation, but in local processes of self-organization
a temporarily order emerges in the interaction of involved people (Groot, 2010b).
From a complex responsive process-perspective there is not such a thing as a system
which more or less exists independently form the interactions of the involved people
and which can be provoked to change in a predictable way.
Self-organization is set out as a process in which “... nobody tells the water that it has
to organize itself this way.” (Homan, 2005: 354). If metaphorically speaking all the
involved people regarding the drafting of the performance agreements were ‘the
water’ then from a complex responsive process-perspective neither I nor someone
else would have been able to organize the process in a predictable way. From the
perspective of a CAS it is assumed that clever interventions would have helped to
bring about a new, more efficient order.
From a complexity perspective the drafting of the performance agreements can be
described as a self-organizing process. In the things done by different people a process
evolved of all the involved which had to wait if the outcomes proved and proof to be
worthwhile. Interdependency and involvement in the interactions precluded externalist
positions, meant as being able to manage unilaterally the process or its outcomes.
However, all of the involved were part of what came out.
In the next I label three occurrences as being of special importance in this self-organizing
process. By doing that I realize that my labelling is done in retrospect and as such
could suggest that somehow it is possible to define unambiguously that some occur-
5. Drafting performance agreements: gestures of a contemporary jester | 133