The Performative University: ‘Targets’, ‘Terror’ and ‘Taking Back Freedom’ in Academia

TLDR: The authors assembles eight papers which provide insights into the working lives of early career to more senior academics, from several different countries The first common theme which emerged from these papers was the importance of the early career in academic life.

Abstract: This special issue assembles eight papers which provide insights into the working lives of early career to more senior academics, from several different countries The first common theme which emer

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Special Issue: Performative University
The Performative University: ‘Targets’,
‘Terror’ and ‘Taking Back Freedom’ in cademia
David R Jones
[GQ1]
Northumbria University, UK
Max Visser
Radboud University, The Netherlands
Peter Stokes
De Montfort University, UK
Anders Örtenblad
University of Agder, Norway
Rosemary Deem
Royal Holloway (University of London), UK
Peter Rodgers
University of Leicester, UK
Shlomo Y Tarba
University of Birmingham, UK
Corresponding author:
David R Jones, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1
8ST, UK.
Email: david9.jones@northumbria.ac.uk
Abstract
This special issue assembles eight papers which provide
insights into the working lives of early career to more senior
academics, from several different countries. The first
common theme which emerges is around the predominance

of ‘Targets’, enacting aspects of quantification and the ideal
of perfect control and fabrication. The second theme is about
the ensuing precarious evocation of ‘Terror’ impacting on
mental well-being, albeit enacted in diverse ways.
Furthermore, several papers highlight a particular type of
response, beyond complicity to ‘Take Freedom Back’ (the
third theme). This freedom is used to assert an emerging
parallel form of resistance over time, from overt, planned,
institutional collective representation towards more informal,
post-recognition forms of collaborative, covert, counter
spaces (both virtually and physically). Such resistance is
underpinned by a collective care, generosity and embrace of
vulnerability, whereby a reflexive collegiality is enacted. We
feel that these emergent practices should encourage senior
management, including vice-chancellors, to rethink
performative practices. Situating the papers in the context of
the current coronavirus crisis, they point towards new forms
of seeing and organising which open up, rather than close
down, academic freedom to unleash collaborative
emancipatory power so as to contribute to the public and
ecological good.
Keywords
Alternative forms of organising, business schools, critical
management, higher education, performativity, universities
Introduction
That time
We all heard it,
Cool and clear ….
… Warning, in music-words
Devout and large,
That we are each other’s
harvest:

we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
-Paul Robeson by Gwendolyn Brooks (1971): 19
As an eclectic international and multi-disciplinary group of
guest editors curating a special issue written by a set of
international authors, we consider the timing of this could not
be more relevant. If nothing else, the coronavirus (COVID-
19) global pandemic crisis challenges every individual to
assess their agency and responsibility, individually and
collectively, at local, national and global institutional levels.
From a management and organisational learning perspective,
what it does offer is an opportunity and responsibility, in light
of the potential of the crisis to cause untold human suffering
and economic disaster (Hudecheck et al., 2020) – it represents
a chance to consider our own role as business and
management academics (and managers) and the way our
individual and collective voice and learning are asserted, not
only for the benefit of our own working lives, our colleagues,
our wider universities, but also for the society as a whole. We
are thereby hoping that this special issue, at this particular
time (and hopefully beyond), offers a chance to raise the
conversation enough to inspire academics and managers alike
to develop a collective activism of solidarity, which
recognises increasing structural power inequity
consequentially stemming from neo-liberal marketisation and
competitive pressures.
The crisis of course has highlighted the fragility, precarity and
even brutality (hence the reference to the ‘Terror’) of
managing with the unquestioned instrumental managerial
approach of minimising academic labour costs (through, for

example, casualisation) and maximising income through the
competitive clamour for meeting ‘Targets’, such as around
attracting international students and being the sycophantic
servants to multinational business. Our contention here is that
the Coronavirus crisis could signal a shift towards new forms
of organising for organisations (including universities) across
the globe (Reeves et al., 2020), which unleash the collective
emancipatory power of the much degraded atomised
‘academic’. This will move way beyond fair pay and
conditions (albeit crucial to recognise) and could offer
organising which unleashes a spirit of reflexive learning for
the public and ecological good. Pereira et al. (2020) highlight
the criticality of taking a collaborative approach within the
crisis. Some of the collective responses to the coronavirus,
such as the localised and spontaneous emergence of Italian
communities, that use music and song on their balconies to
assert a collective care and generosity for the vulnerable in
response to their governmental imposed physical distancing,
provide a particularly pertinent lesson in the ways that
academics could ‘Take Back Freedom’ (‘freedom’ is used
here as a deliberate antonym to the use of ‘control’ within the
‘Take Back Control’ slogan of the Brexit campaign with the
United Kingdom), through such collective practices as
crafting not only physical but virtual counter spaces, to
increase equality and fairness within universities.
The key differentiating feature of this special issue is that it
opens up a conversation about academic response, beyond
our complicity with the embedded ‘Targets’ and ‘Terror’ of
what we argue as the global institutional Zeitgeist of the
‘Performative University’. Moreover, we feel the special
issue also portrays a realistic picture of current academic
agency, with a shared concern and recognition for common

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Q1. What have the authors contributed in "The performative university: ‘targets’, ‘terror’ and ‘taking back freedom’ in cademia" ?

This special issue assembles eight papers which provide insights into the working lives of early career to more senior academics, from several different countries. The authors feel that these emergent practices should encourage senior management, including vice-chancellors, to rethink performative practices. Situating the papers in the context of the current coronavirus crisis, they point towards new forms of seeing and organising which open up, rather than close down, academic freedom to unleash collaborative emancipatory power so as to contribute to the public and ecological good. Furthermore, several papers highlight a particular type of response, beyond complicity to ‘ Take Freedom Back ’ ( the third theme ).