Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

Performance agreements
That performance agreements have to do with performativity is tautological. In
narrative three (chapter 5) can be seen how performativity and performances become
a social construction on the spot. There is nobody who applauds the decree of the
State Secretary, however we start to make the best of it as soon as it is obvious that
the agreements are unavoidable. Out of the Babylonian discussions through a mixture
of self-belief, redefinitions, negotiations, happy coincidences, stoicism and tactical
adaptation our performance agreements emerge. The discussion about the way and
the efforts afterwards needed to account for the realization of the performance
agreements illustrate how loosely a specific national and institutional policy is connected
to daily practice. Of course efforts are made to connect policy and daily practice,
more specific strategy-maps (Kaplan and Norton, 2004) are used to try to bridge
that gap. Yet, the performance agreements feel a bit as an artificial but unavoidable
interference in daily practice. In hindsight however, at the same time the performance
agreements unintentionally appeared to be politically helpful to conclude some already
long-lasting internal discussions about profiling the UAS. A blessing in disguise,
so to speak.
Dissent
I think there is some veracity when it is stated that “to resist something also means to
reify it, by privileging it as a meaningful area for political contest.” (Thomas and Davies,
2005: 687). Resisting performativity in its different realities is acknowledging its
presence and paradoxically confirms its importance. Whether one agrees or not. In
this respect the fourth narrative (chapter 6) is a particular interesting narrative. In the
discussions the involved were expressing their discomfort - although for varying and
alternating reasons - with some subjects and with the way subjects were or had to be
managed, about hierarchical relations and about present-day managerial responsibilities
and identity. In my view the discussions evolved into a joint effort to seek a way of
understanding to interrupt what has become reified and still keeps on being reified in
our policy. It was seeking ways to interrupt what has become self-evidently in the perspective
on how to deal with policy. In my experience the discussions around dissent
emerged into discussions to reach out imaginatively for or to open up different roads
to follow. I could say that it was an attempt to get back to a narratively (Lyotard, 1979)
or figurational (Elias, 1982) ‘pre-knowing’ in which subjects are undefined.
Surprisingly this reaching out for the narrative dimension of organizational life might
be connected to a plea for interruptive pedagogy. The plea for interruptive pedagogy
criticizes the approach of education as a production-facility of competent citizens
because of its denying of the existential dimensions of human life (Biesta, 2012). According
to Biesta an industrial orientation on education at least should be completed with
educational practices aimed at the development of the student as a person.
As it appeared to be throughout the narratives about identity-management, performance
agreements and dissent, performativity was at stake in the different discussi-
7. <strong>Rumbling</strong> on performativity: a reflexive perspective on advisory work | 187