On becoming in pedagogical performance artist

Abstract

Contemporary forms of management education continue to reproduce the mechanistic, bureaucratic structures which shape and position all involved in the management learning context. This includes hidden (and not so hidden) co-ordinates of how we should relate to each other, the planet, and its co-inhabitants. Such co-ordinates continue to be imbued with dis-passion and de-tachment, with dramatic and traumatic consequences in relation to sustainable development: the need for radical leaps in holistic, affective engagement is therefore urgent. As Paul Shrivastava’s work on ‘pedagogies of passion’ has illustrated, the arts are central to this movement. But as we move towards such spaces, some crucial questions remain: Who is the artist? What does it mean for a management educator to become an artist? What does it mean for the metaphorical classroom to become the canvas or the stage? Might becoming a (management) pedagogical performance artist become a path to existential crises? This QIC aspires to explore these prompts to raise new questions, concerns and ideas.