INTE-ITICAM-IDEC CONFERENCE, 2018 Paris FRANCE, 2018
Performance management in higher education has been critiqued for enabling the encroachment of ne... more Performance management in higher education has been critiqued for enabling the encroachment of neoliberalism in public institutions, producing high performance expectations and surveillance practices that subjugate academics and managers. Caught up in the romanticism of leadership as a "solution to all ills" and hoping to mediate undesirable effects on performance management, I was moved to explore a different and appropriate academic HODs' leadership for performance management. However, following a reflexive breakdown, seeing the blind spot in my study's assumption that critical leadership is necessary to change academics' performance conditions, I questioned the rationality of seeking it when HODs are barely doing the leading. This suggests the possibility of seeking alternative modes of organising (management, power, autonomy, peer influencing) that HODs are using or could undertake in universities within the confines of their contextually embedded roles.
In this conceptual paper, I argue that the decolonising curriculum project at a faculty of health... more In this conceptual paper, I argue that the decolonising curriculum project at a faculty of health sciences is not achieving the intended purpose of decolonisation, which is to engage alternative African knowledge frames within the programmes' curricula. In the race to respond to students' demand for the decolonisation of the university curriculum, in 2017 the faculty took a decision to focus on socioeconomic determinants of health as an aspect of curriculum content that would serve the decolonising project. I contend that this approach does not constitute a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative African paradigm, in this case African healing as an alternative knowledge frame. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) and the notion of critical performativity, I propose reclaiming the rightful place of African identities and knowledges by engaging critical performativity as a pragmatic and progressive pedagogical approach to explore African healing as an African indigenous knowledge system (IKS) in politically conscious and authentic ways.
Socioeconomica – The Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, 2018
This article draws on case study research. The empirical data were gathered from students in a ci... more This article draws on case study research. The empirical data were gathered from students in a citizenship course in a department within a health sciences faculty. The focus is on how issues of democracy in South Africa are facilitated and interpreted through critical pedagogy and how they influence students' attitude toward voting. The findings convey a reconstructed and informed notion of democracy that inspires a sense of active citizenship underpinned by an emancipatory rationality. At the same time, the findings reflect some students' implicit resistance to a system they are becoming disillusioned with.
As an academic, I have felt the brunt of the control of performance management, being privy to pe... more As an academic, I have felt the brunt of the control of performance management, being privy to performance contracts that have become more stringent and subject to more scrutiny. On this basis, I am inclined to conclude that performance management is a subtle, coercive power tactic. I agree with Ball (2015) that with performance management’s reliance on quantitative measurement, “we are reduced by it to a category or quotient—our worth, our humanity and our complexity are abridged” (p. 5).
Alternation Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa, 2021
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unexpectedly brought the world to its knees, cre... more The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unexpectedly brought the world to its knees, creating health, economic, social and education crises. As a crisis, COVID-19 is characterised by uncertainties, anxieties, tensions and contradictions, requiring a strong leadership presence in its response. Consequently, people look up to leadership for answers, comfort, support and guidance in protecting people’s lives. However, drawing from critical leadership studies, this paper contends that the demand for leadership during crises risks encouraging leadership romanticism, thus sanctioning leadership power, which could cause more harm than good. Despite the justifiable need for leadership’s visibility and action during crises, there remains a risk of followers’ unquestioned reliance on the leader, thus slipping into functional stupidity with devastating consequences.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a global education crisis, which is rendered more complex in education systems such as in South Africa, which was already struggling with leadership legitimacy regarding its ability to provide equitable quality education and prepare learners for future work prior to the pandemic. Thus, in this conceptual paper, pandemic leadership is proposed as a framework for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and to future pandemics while simultaneously mediating against repressive and silencing power and functional stupidity. Pandemic leadership offers significant leadership practices that centralise expert knowledge and related flexibilities; acknowledge the significance of the pandemic; deliberate on decisions while being considerate of contextual conditions; mobilise alter-native voices and collaboration; demonstrate compassion and provide timely, valid, honest and transparent communication that builds trust.
Universities have become toxic sites characterised by anxiety, depression and humiliation. Follow... more Universities have become toxic sites characterised by anxiety, depression and humiliation. Following new managerialism, leadership and management in universities have been driven by the mandate of achieving efficiency, which has led to the implementation of stringent performance management systems, increasing accountability and authoritarianism. While performance management is justified as an accountability tool that drives efficiency and effectiveness, its demand for absolute transparency has created “panopticons” and “glass cages”. These have produced a stifling atmosphere in academic spaces, often characterised by competing demands for high research outputs and quality teaching, thus placing academics in subjected positions where their agency is threatened. In view of academics silently constructing uncontrolled and uncontrollable spaces to avoid increasing surveillance, I argue that academics are resisting universities’ demand for the invading transparency of performance managem...
The considerable transformation of higher education (HE), driven by the South African government’... more The considerable transformation of higher education (HE), driven by the South African government’s demand for accountability of resources for the attainment of its mandate has altered the ‘business’ of academia. In response to the financial austerity measures, performance management (PM) systems have been implemented in South African HE to monitor and enhance staff performance. This article conceptualizes PM in higher education using agency and stewardship theories. Data emanates from a phenomenological study of academic heads of department’s (HOD) experiences of PM. There is evidence that agency theory may be an appropriate mechanism to achieve explicit accountability, and to monitor and enhance performance. However, it is fraught with problems within academic contexts. The findings demonstrate limitations of agency theory with regard to the stewardship of academics. Thus foregrounding the need for the retention of approaches underpinned by stewardship theory. This article thus makes a contribution in terms of providing a proposition for an analytical framework that integrates agency and stewardship theories in researching PM in HE. Central to this proposition is working within a continuum of these theories to mediate the apparent tension between control and collaboration/collegiality.
Socioeconomica - The Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, 2016
This paper explores how performance management (PM) in higher education has become an oppressive ... more This paper explores how performance management (PM) in higher education has become an oppressive panoptic tower in its pursuit of institutional accountability. Panopticism, derived from the panopticon, is used as a metaphor for academic surveillance. Using Foucault’s notion of panopticism, we argue that academics have succumbed to the ‘normalization judgment’ effected through systemic institutional surveillance practices. In this case study, we explored how PM facilitated through target-setting performance contracts is experienced by a selection of South African university academics. There are indications that performativity is creating a reality that is constraining, alienating and individualizing, thereby detracting from the academic enterprise.
INTE-ITICAM-IDEC CONFERENCE, 2018 Paris FRANCE, 2018
Performance management in higher education has been critiqued for enabling the encroachment of ne... more Performance management in higher education has been critiqued for enabling the encroachment of neoliberalism in public institutions, producing high performance expectations and surveillance practices that subjugate academics and managers. Caught up in the romanticism of leadership as a "solution to all ills" and hoping to mediate undesirable effects on performance management, I was moved to explore a different and appropriate academic HODs' leadership for performance management. However, following a reflexive breakdown, seeing the blind spot in my study's assumption that critical leadership is necessary to change academics' performance conditions, I questioned the rationality of seeking it when HODs are barely doing the leading. This suggests the possibility of seeking alternative modes of organising (management, power, autonomy, peer influencing) that HODs are using or could undertake in universities within the confines of their contextually embedded roles.
In this conceptual paper, I argue that the decolonising curriculum project at a faculty of health... more In this conceptual paper, I argue that the decolonising curriculum project at a faculty of health sciences is not achieving the intended purpose of decolonisation, which is to engage alternative African knowledge frames within the programmes' curricula. In the race to respond to students' demand for the decolonisation of the university curriculum, in 2017 the faculty took a decision to focus on socioeconomic determinants of health as an aspect of curriculum content that would serve the decolonising project. I contend that this approach does not constitute a decolonising project since there is no engagement with what ought to be an alternative African paradigm, in this case African healing as an alternative knowledge frame. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) and the notion of critical performativity, I propose reclaiming the rightful place of African identities and knowledges by engaging critical performativity as a pragmatic and progressive pedagogical approach to explore African healing as an African indigenous knowledge system (IKS) in politically conscious and authentic ways.
Socioeconomica – The Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, 2018
This article draws on case study research. The empirical data were gathered from students in a ci... more This article draws on case study research. The empirical data were gathered from students in a citizenship course in a department within a health sciences faculty. The focus is on how issues of democracy in South Africa are facilitated and interpreted through critical pedagogy and how they influence students' attitude toward voting. The findings convey a reconstructed and informed notion of democracy that inspires a sense of active citizenship underpinned by an emancipatory rationality. At the same time, the findings reflect some students' implicit resistance to a system they are becoming disillusioned with.
As an academic, I have felt the brunt of the control of performance management, being privy to pe... more As an academic, I have felt the brunt of the control of performance management, being privy to performance contracts that have become more stringent and subject to more scrutiny. On this basis, I am inclined to conclude that performance management is a subtle, coercive power tactic. I agree with Ball (2015) that with performance management’s reliance on quantitative measurement, “we are reduced by it to a category or quotient—our worth, our humanity and our complexity are abridged” (p. 5).
Alternation Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa, 2021
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unexpectedly brought the world to its knees, cre... more The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic unexpectedly brought the world to its knees, creating health, economic, social and education crises. As a crisis, COVID-19 is characterised by uncertainties, anxieties, tensions and contradictions, requiring a strong leadership presence in its response. Consequently, people look up to leadership for answers, comfort, support and guidance in protecting people’s lives. However, drawing from critical leadership studies, this paper contends that the demand for leadership during crises risks encouraging leadership romanticism, thus sanctioning leadership power, which could cause more harm than good. Despite the justifiable need for leadership’s visibility and action during crises, there remains a risk of followers’ unquestioned reliance on the leader, thus slipping into functional stupidity with devastating consequences.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a global education crisis, which is rendered more complex in education systems such as in South Africa, which was already struggling with leadership legitimacy regarding its ability to provide equitable quality education and prepare learners for future work prior to the pandemic. Thus, in this conceptual paper, pandemic leadership is proposed as a framework for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and to future pandemics while simultaneously mediating against repressive and silencing power and functional stupidity. Pandemic leadership offers significant leadership practices that centralise expert knowledge and related flexibilities; acknowledge the significance of the pandemic; deliberate on decisions while being considerate of contextual conditions; mobilise alter-native voices and collaboration; demonstrate compassion and provide timely, valid, honest and transparent communication that builds trust.
Universities have become toxic sites characterised by anxiety, depression and humiliation. Follow... more Universities have become toxic sites characterised by anxiety, depression and humiliation. Following new managerialism, leadership and management in universities have been driven by the mandate of achieving efficiency, which has led to the implementation of stringent performance management systems, increasing accountability and authoritarianism. While performance management is justified as an accountability tool that drives efficiency and effectiveness, its demand for absolute transparency has created “panopticons” and “glass cages”. These have produced a stifling atmosphere in academic spaces, often characterised by competing demands for high research outputs and quality teaching, thus placing academics in subjected positions where their agency is threatened. In view of academics silently constructing uncontrolled and uncontrollable spaces to avoid increasing surveillance, I argue that academics are resisting universities’ demand for the invading transparency of performance managem...
The considerable transformation of higher education (HE), driven by the South African government’... more The considerable transformation of higher education (HE), driven by the South African government’s demand for accountability of resources for the attainment of its mandate has altered the ‘business’ of academia. In response to the financial austerity measures, performance management (PM) systems have been implemented in South African HE to monitor and enhance staff performance. This article conceptualizes PM in higher education using agency and stewardship theories. Data emanates from a phenomenological study of academic heads of department’s (HOD) experiences of PM. There is evidence that agency theory may be an appropriate mechanism to achieve explicit accountability, and to monitor and enhance performance. However, it is fraught with problems within academic contexts. The findings demonstrate limitations of agency theory with regard to the stewardship of academics. Thus foregrounding the need for the retention of approaches underpinned by stewardship theory. This article thus makes a contribution in terms of providing a proposition for an analytical framework that integrates agency and stewardship theories in researching PM in HE. Central to this proposition is working within a continuum of these theories to mediate the apparent tension between control and collaboration/collegiality.
Socioeconomica - The Scientific Journal for Theory and Practice of Socio-economic Development, 2016
This paper explores how performance management (PM) in higher education has become an oppressive ... more This paper explores how performance management (PM) in higher education has become an oppressive panoptic tower in its pursuit of institutional accountability. Panopticism, derived from the panopticon, is used as a metaphor for academic surveillance. Using Foucault’s notion of panopticism, we argue that academics have succumbed to the ‘normalization judgment’ effected through systemic institutional surveillance practices. In this case study, we explored how PM facilitated through target-setting performance contracts is experienced by a selection of South African university academics. There are indications that performativity is creating a reality that is constraining, alienating and individualizing, thereby detracting from the academic enterprise.
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Papers by Sadi E L I Z A B E T H Seyama-Mokhaneli
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a global education crisis, which is rendered more complex in education systems such as in South Africa, which was already struggling with leadership legitimacy regarding its ability to provide equitable quality education and prepare learners for future work prior to the pandemic. Thus, in this conceptual paper, pandemic leadership is proposed as a framework for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and to future pandemics while simultaneously mediating against repressive and silencing power and functional stupidity. Pandemic leadership offers significant leadership practices that centralise expert knowledge and related flexibilities; acknowledge the significance of the pandemic; deliberate on decisions while being considerate of contextual conditions; mobilise alter-native voices and collaboration; demonstrate compassion and provide timely, valid, honest and transparent communication that builds trust.
a phenomenological study of academic heads of department’s (HOD) experiences of PM. There is evidence that agency theory may be an appropriate mechanism to achieve explicit accountability, and to monitor and enhance performance. However, it is fraught with problems within academic contexts. The findings demonstrate limitations of agency theory with regard to the stewardship of academics. Thus foregrounding the need for the retention of approaches underpinned by stewardship theory. This article thus makes a contribution in terms of providing a proposition for an analytical framework that integrates agency and stewardship theories in researching PM in HE. Central to this proposition is working within a continuum of these theories to mediate the apparent tension between control and collaboration/collegiality.
In this case study, we explored how PM facilitated through target-setting performance contracts is experienced by a selection of South African university academics. There are indications that performativity is creating a reality that is constraining, alienating and individualizing, thereby detracting from the academic enterprise.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a global education crisis, which is rendered more complex in education systems such as in South Africa, which was already struggling with leadership legitimacy regarding its ability to provide equitable quality education and prepare learners for future work prior to the pandemic. Thus, in this conceptual paper, pandemic leadership is proposed as a framework for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and to future pandemics while simultaneously mediating against repressive and silencing power and functional stupidity. Pandemic leadership offers significant leadership practices that centralise expert knowledge and related flexibilities; acknowledge the significance of the pandemic; deliberate on decisions while being considerate of contextual conditions; mobilise alter-native voices and collaboration; demonstrate compassion and provide timely, valid, honest and transparent communication that builds trust.
a phenomenological study of academic heads of department’s (HOD) experiences of PM. There is evidence that agency theory may be an appropriate mechanism to achieve explicit accountability, and to monitor and enhance performance. However, it is fraught with problems within academic contexts. The findings demonstrate limitations of agency theory with regard to the stewardship of academics. Thus foregrounding the need for the retention of approaches underpinned by stewardship theory. This article thus makes a contribution in terms of providing a proposition for an analytical framework that integrates agency and stewardship theories in researching PM in HE. Central to this proposition is working within a continuum of these theories to mediate the apparent tension between control and collaboration/collegiality.
In this case study, we explored how PM facilitated through target-setting performance contracts is experienced by a selection of South African university academics. There are indications that performativity is creating a reality that is constraining, alienating and individualizing, thereby detracting from the academic enterprise.