The ‘performative’ university: theoretical and personal reflections

Abstract

ABSTRACT For centuries, universities have proliferated and flourished around the world, playing an important role in societal knowledge production and diffusion. However, in the past four decades, this old organizational form has been subjected to neoliberal, managerialist policy doctrines such as New Public Management. Following this, universities have tended to become more ‘business-like’ in their internal management and governance, with generally perceived adverse effects on the quality of academic education, research, and working conditions. These developments pose fundamental threats to academic freedom and free knowledge production and diffusion. Acknowledging various forms of academic resistance to, and coping with, these threats, the purpose of our paper is twofold. First, we adopt the concept of ‘performativity’ – hitherto researched mainly in primary and secondary schools in Anglo-Saxon contexts – to account for, and critique, neoliberal university policies, and practices in a variety of Global North settings. Second, through collaborative autoethnography, we add our own personal narratives to ‘talk back’ to managerialism.