Painting Outside the Lines: Transgressing the Managerial University, Avoiding Forced Creativity

Abstract

This chapter aims to put creative methods into the context of wider trends in university institutions. As managerialism—here understood as the application of corporate values and practices into all sectors of society—continues to play a large role in the production and creation of knowledge, we argue that creative methods have the potential to either subvert or reinforce these trends. We see the entrenchment of managerialism as contradictory to the stated aims of the application of creative methods in knowledge production. In an attempt to avoid this, we provide a picture and discuss the institutional framework in which creative methods are deployed to understand and critique the values and practices of managerialism in academia. We point towards the constraints it places on those who wish to take a creative approach. First, we provide an historical accounting of how managerial values have contributed to de-politicization in the wider public sphere, with a particular focus on academia. Second, we outline the fundamental properties of the managerial university, summarized as: (i) accountability, (ii) competition, and (iii) obedience. Third, we sketch out a definition of forced creativity and illustrate two applied cases of how it might look in practice: “artwashing” and “funding tricks”. This section is meant to contribute to defining “truly” creative methods by spelling out what they are not. Finally, we summarize our main points and provide future directions of discussion.