Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

Interdependency became visible during a meeting when the dean of the Technology
faculty excused himself for representing the faculty that would get budgetary priority,
as he knew how badly his colleagues also needed budget. At the same time this
example elucidates the working of power as no other dean obstructed this priority.
Instead of obstruction deans started to connect their faculty with the new profile. No
one risked his or her good working relations or position by opposing to the inevitable.
In general it is obvious that “we depend on others; others depend on us. In so far as we
are more dependent on others than they on us, more directed by others than they by
us, they have power over us, whether we have become dependent on them by their
use of their naked force or by our need to be loved, our need for money, healing, status,
career, or simply excitement.” (Elias, 1970: 93). Given this Eliasian perspective on interdependency,
power should not be approached as a thing or a possession which someone
can use unilaterally or arbitrarily. Power should be approached as an opportunity
to settle things more or less as you hope for within an actual situation. In line with
Elias (1970) one can say that power is a structural feature of all human relations and
given the processual character of these relations the real balance of power has to be
negotiated every time.
The negotiable character of the balance of power can be elucidated with the discussions
about the prescribed 504 hours of real contact between a lecturer and students in
the student’s 1st year. Although the financial and didactical consequences for some
faculties or departments were great it was accepted that Ella Rietkerk and Frans
Custers more or less unilaterally decided that 504 hours would be the norm. There
was a bit of skirmish when some deans tried to change the definition and thus potentially
changing the amount of hours, but as the members of the board could not be
tempted, discussions quickly evaporated. Being a nuisance on a subject which was and
still is a societal hot issue does not promote one’s position, and there were little arguments
to use another definition. Moreover, for some deans the norm of 504 hours
would mean the allocation some extra budgetary means, so a compensation for the
loss of budget because of the chosen profile was already on its way. In this way the
disturbance in the balance of power already became restored through a side door.
From a complexity perspective the financial compensation can be interpreted as an
attractor which changed the direction of discussions.
Unknown till the end
From the perspective of a complex responsive process-approach it becomes clear that
the final version of the performance agreements was a document of which beforehand
the outcome was unknown and in its details even unpredictable. The many
interactions among different people on different levels of the organization, people
who depend on each other in their professional status, gave birth to a document with
which many people start or have to start working. Still, if the wished for networks and
connections of colleagues to realize the performance agreements will be established,
5. Drafting performance agreements: gestures of a contemporary jester | 137