Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

Apparently an ironic or mocking stance is part of a greater palette of skills. Merely
irony would have had unproductive consequences regarding the assignments I had
and unproductive consequences regarding what happened in the discussions with
regard to dissent. Merely irony is not taking anything seriously and runs the risk of not
being taken serious. Being a trickster irony is effective by reconfiguring instead of
obliterating social reality (Frentz, 2008).
If I look back on my career and some of my own descriptions I see a lot of different
things I did. I see myself doing odd jobs, and fiddling around with many subjects,
positions and activities. Strictly speaking there is no clear line in my career, coincidence,
curiosity, needed variation and challenges, and a more or less strong inclination
towards autonomy play their part. I was often assigned as and felt myself some sort of
a handyman. At the same time I am very connected to the UAS, quite loyal, and able
and enabled to do very different things.
My conclusion is that as far as it concerns my advisory work neither I am a jester nor
working as a jester within my organization. If anything, then I would prefer to be
labelled as a bricoleur, a handyman-like or tinkering figure which I came across in the
literature of OMS. Indeed a bricoleur with a touch of irony, and of course a bricoleur
within the context of the UAS.
Advisory work: bricolage with an ironic touch
It was the French anthropologist and ethnologist Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) who
introduced the concept of bricolage. Bricolage is used to describe the activity of someone
who uses what is at hand to accomplish a task. Lévi-Strauss used the concept as a
contrast between the science of the concrete and the analytic or rational way of
action within Western cultures. It was Weick (2001) who in 1982 introduced bricolage
in OMS. In research bricolage is introduced as an emergent way of doing research with
montages as result (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). Within OMS bricolage has a more or
less elaborated profile through which the result of the work of the bricoleur can be
interpreted as emerging from his practical efforts (Duymedjian and Ruling, 2010;
Fuglsang and Sørensen, 2011; Gabriel, 2002).
If I look again at the narratives I could say that there is a lot more of bricolage than
assumed from the perspective of rational planning or performativity. I would even
conjecture that bricolage is far more the rule if we change - or innovate (Fuglsang and
Sørensen, 2011) - our reality by adjusting at the spot. Therefore it is interesting to know
why managers - or politicians or civil servants - might be keeping up the suggestion
that an educational organizational reality can be planned in a rational way, even when
it is known that in most circumstances that is not the case (Hooge, 2013).
However, looking at the three narratives I did more than adjusting. I was busy enabling
processes by connecting and mediating among people, and redefining and putting in
perspective subjects, and apparently not avoiding to discuss touchy subjects.
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