Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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Pursuing my research?<br />
On a c<strong>on</strong>ceptual level I c<strong>on</strong>cluded that there was sufficient affinity between my defaults<br />
and a complex resp<strong>on</strong>sive process-approach to pursue my research from a<br />
complex resp<strong>on</strong>sive process-perspective. However, that was rather an intuitive than<br />
rati<strong>on</strong>al decisi<strong>on</strong>. I became c<strong>on</strong>vinced that there was something to gain in the understanding<br />
of my practice. At the start the affinity was not evident for me. As indicated<br />
in chapter 1 I had a lot of questi<strong>on</strong>s regarding ‘doing policy’ and a colleague suggested<br />
me to start a PhD in the graduate school of the Open University. Maybe I could find<br />
some answers. After my admissi<strong>on</strong> for the PhD-programme I was directed to the<br />
Complexity Group, apparently based <strong>on</strong> my intake and my shown interest in the work<br />
of Homan (2005). That after a year of working I wanted to pursue my research within<br />
this group and approach had not been my plan beforehand. Serendipity?<br />
3.8 Reflecti<strong>on</strong>s in hindsight<br />
After three years reading back my first narrative - which was meant to clarify my<br />
taken for granted assumpti<strong>on</strong>s about the way I reflect up<strong>on</strong> myself as a professi<strong>on</strong>al<br />
and the organizati<strong>on</strong> I work for - I see myself as some<strong>on</strong>e who reflected and acted <strong>on</strong><br />
a fuzzy mixture of different perspectives <strong>on</strong> life, work or management. To explain<br />
what I did and why I fell back <strong>on</strong> organismic noti<strong>on</strong>s, fed by my Romanticism, inspired<br />
by the c<strong>on</strong>cepts of co-creati<strong>on</strong> and wisdom of the crowd. Moreover, I fell back <strong>on</strong> a<br />
kind of cognitivism in which routines or default assumpti<strong>on</strong>s should be changed, <strong>on</strong> a<br />
kind of historic and social determinism where organizati<strong>on</strong>s and individuals should<br />
adapt to, and <strong>on</strong> a rather instrumental opini<strong>on</strong> of management. At that time factually I<br />
gave a manager, and thus myself in that role, a lot of instrumental resp<strong>on</strong>sibility for<br />
what is happening, for c<strong>on</strong>trolling what is happening, even for the way people feel<br />
involved. Although now I think differently, at that time apparently I saw a manager as<br />
positi<strong>on</strong>ed above instead as part of the daily muddle. This stance is also recognisable in<br />
the way I reflected up<strong>on</strong> myself: an assemblage of defaults which apparently can be<br />
‘switched <strong>on</strong> and off’.<br />
This fuzzy mixture of different perspectives apparently was held upright by a deeply<br />
ingrained anti-authoritarian relati<strong>on</strong> with my fellow human beings and more specific<br />
managers. I wanted to decide for myself what is good for me. Of course this will have<br />
to do with the preferred status of a professi<strong>on</strong>al (Wanrooy, 2007), but also with me<br />
being raised in the 1970s amidst all the emancipatory developments.<br />
However, this fuzzy mixture also proofed to become an obstacle. The obstacle I experienced<br />
is beautifully put into words by Alvess<strong>on</strong> and Sköldberg (2009: 58):”the risk<br />
with too much book-learning is to become over-dependent <strong>on</strong> earlier authorities and<br />
tangled up in all the old problems, so that it becomes difficult to see new possibilities.”<br />
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