Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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In retrospect I interpret my involvement in the programme about identity-management<br />
my participati<strong>on</strong> as a bit of surreptitious resistance against the idea or possibility<br />
to change the identity of organizati<strong>on</strong>al members by a corporate programme. In the<br />
narrative about the performance agreements I take a more explicit positi<strong>on</strong> against<br />
the possibility and desirability of these kind of agreements. Ending up in a narrative<br />
about dissent by explicitly raising a discussi<strong>on</strong> about what we are doing instead of<br />
going <strong>on</strong> doing things.<br />
Apart from what these narratives, the analyses and reflecti<strong>on</strong>s clarified about my<br />
positi<strong>on</strong> as an adviser - see 7.2 - it may be obvious that reflecting from a complex<br />
resp<strong>on</strong>sive process-perspective while working together with many people also affected<br />
my taken for granted assumpti<strong>on</strong>s. I came to experience situati<strong>on</strong>s as real situati<strong>on</strong>s<br />
of real and interdependent people in which things evolve in a rather unpredictable<br />
way. By that I learned that at least the people I was involved with all struggled with<br />
what I came to label as the subject of <strong>performativity</strong>. However, a struggle not as an<br />
explicit and rati<strong>on</strong>al subject <strong>on</strong> our agenda, but entwined in daily social interacti<strong>on</strong>s.<br />
That <strong>performativity</strong> could become a more or less explicit subject <strong>on</strong> the agenda of<br />
some people has am<strong>on</strong>gst others to do with my presumed acting as a corporate jester.<br />
And again, as reflected up<strong>on</strong> before, I experienced of being part of a self-organizing<br />
social interacti<strong>on</strong> in which things emerge out of c<strong>on</strong>trol of the involved.<br />
7.2 Corporate jestership and <strong>performativity</strong>: from a joker to<br />
interrupting<br />
Throughout the narratives some tenacity is striking. Partly it is my tenacity, supporting<br />
that starting from the project about identity-management attenti<strong>on</strong> is growing for<br />
what primarily is labelled as a need for openness. In due course the subject openness<br />
evolves into discussi<strong>on</strong>s about dissent At least the discussi<strong>on</strong>s in the think-tank indicate<br />
quite some discomfort with something what apparently is lost in the way we<br />
organize our university.<br />
To voice discomfort with what we were doing is part of my tenacity during the different<br />
projects. Somehow I was the voter against. In my role as adviser I was some<strong>on</strong>e<br />
who tried to back out a bit of the c<strong>on</strong>tagious heat of the moment or to summ<strong>on</strong> some<br />
cognitive diss<strong>on</strong>ance.<br />
Around this backing out the theme of the joker or the corporate jester emerged. Could<br />
I by the way I acted be qualified as the acts of a corporate jester? If so why and how?<br />
At the end the questi<strong>on</strong> even came to be if the UAS is in need of a corporate jester and<br />
how in that case a jestership could be fulfilled.<br />
7. <str<strong>on</strong>g>Rumbling</str<strong>on</strong>g> <strong>on</strong> <strong>performativity</strong>: a reflexive perspective <strong>on</strong> advisory work | 179