Notes on: Sparkes,A. (2013).
Qualitative research in sport, exercise and
health in the era of neoliberalism, audit and
New Public Management: understanding the
conditions for the (im)possibilities of new
paradigms dialogue. Qualitative Research in
Sport, Exercise and Health 5 (3): 440 –
59.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2013.796493
Dave Harris
In a recent special edition of this journal, a
dialogue was invited between quantitative and
qualitative researchers, but the issue of power
had been neglected. The 'wider social and
political climate is important'(440). There has
been a 'neoconservative backlash to qualitative
research… The rise of methodological
fundamentalism'. An audit culture, NPM and
neoliberal agendas have 'framed'[sic] the overall
climate. Perhaps a collective response will
reawaken dialogue.
The paradigms wars of the early 1980s have been
described in a paper by Sage. A dialogue did
ensue, but recently there are metaphors of 'war'
again — Denzin speaks of the '"new paradigm war"'
[2009 book called Qualitative Inquiry Under
Fire]. In a special issue of this journal,
quantitative researchers invited to comment on
qualitative work also drew on an article referring
to paradigms wars, something going on '"that is
aggressive, is competitive and is causing harm"'
(441), not helped by the low impact factor of
qualitative journals. There has been loss of jobs
as well and some have been '"bullied out of
departments"' [quoting Smith and Brown 2011]. The
new direction is tied to revenue and the
'"concentration of executive power"'. Most the
contributors referred to methodological issues and
problems and that was interesting, but few others
address the issue of power.
The conduct of qualitative research is 'firmly
located in the domain of politics at the micro
level (e.g. faculty), meso level (e.g. University;
professional Association) and macro level
(Government)'. Of course power and politics are
part of the process of judgement, partly because,
Smith and Hodkinson say '"we live in an era of
relativism"' and that this apparently allows the
expression of '"opinions, ideologies emotions and
self interests"' in judgement. It is never just an
epistemological issue [I said this about debates
between theory and practice in teacher training
decades ago]. Various studies have been examined,
and there has been a neoconservative backlash,
with effects audit culture NPM and neoliberalism.
In their preface to the third edition of the great
Handbook (2005), Denzin and Lincoln refer
to 'quantum leaps' in qualitative research, but
also resistance from neoconservative discourses,
supported by Bush and his 'narrowly defined
governmental regimes of truth'. There is also been
methodological fundamentalism, returning to
'quantitative, experimental design studies' (442).
Global uncertainty is led to increased government
regulation in both the USA and the UK: criteria
had been virtually imposed, and research funding
limited to those who follow the rules. For Denzin
and the others, there are fundamental issues
raised by this 'for scholarship and freedom of
speech in the Academy', and they have called for
resistance.
However what counts as resistance is complex —
Denzin 2010. [The qualitative manifesto: a call
to arms] speaks of the need for
'intellectual, advocacy, operational and ethical'
action, better education and making clear the
benefits. This in turn will involve new ways to
work with one another, and a dialogue between the
two approaches and their various traditions. [He
also seems to be advocating '"a greater openness
to alternative paradigms critiques… A declining
conflict… fruitful dialogue… Celebration of the
proliferation, intermingling, and confluence of
paradigms"'. Bit Fucking late for
that!].Participants should also be aware of risks
both professional and personal, however, in the
changing climate.
Burrows has reported exhaustion and stress,
feelings of shame and guilt — '"a deep, affective,
somatic crisis"' (443) and there have been
illustrative studies. University life has been
transformed — de-professionalised, proletarianised
[clericalised I think], disciplines and
departments have been broken up, management has
assumed greater authority in priorities, academic
work is been quantified and evaluated. Ball
has said that our subjective existence and
identity have been threatened. Neoliberalism is
the direct relation here, and NPM and audit
culture. Again there is substantial documentation
of the effects (listed 443 – 4).
Focusing on audit culture, we can see the new
stress on outcome based assessment systems in
various indices, 'arduous external assessment
systems; and the publication of miscellaneous
league tables'. MacRury sees this as increasing
bureaucratic architecture and increasing
surveillance and recording, and 'accountancy
mindset of performance management'. Examples
include impact factors to rank order scholarly
journals, and citation counts. These all encourage
'neoliberal self enterprise technologies',
individualising performance.
One critique of the University of Queensland sites
a '"Q index"' which agglomerates research income,
waited research publication, high degree
completions and research degree supervision, to 2
decimal points. The score is then compared to
average scores at various levels. People began
talking of themselves as a number. It was
justified as part of the commercialisation of
academia and accountability, but it was also
'"likely to reduce intrinsic motivation, damage
morale and limit the engagement of academics"'.
[It was tied to pay scales and income progress in
my institution] It was an industrial measurement.
Burrows similarly refers to a '"h-index"' and
other metrics to measure citations, workload,
costing data, research assessments, teaching
quality assessments and league tables. Several
articles have been written about this and its lack
of 'construct validity' especially of citation
counts. Despite these methodological objections,
the metric has '"taken on a life of its own"' and
become reified, used the shortlist candidates, to
market CVs, to negotiate salary, predict REE
outcomes, rank colleagues, affect institutional
restructuring.
Impact factor of journals has been developed, and
now a low IF just 'means low quality research'
(445). Sparks has heard 'allegedly "learned
scholars" and senior managers state that, "if it
hasn't got an IF, then it can't be
research"'. Some disciplines have obviously
benefited over others, and lots of people '"cannot
help but reorient their actions toward it"'
[quoting Burrows]. Others have made similar
points. Systems of audit are not just neutral or
politically innocent but 'disciplinary
technologies', Foucauldian '"techniques of the
self"' (446). Universities have been transformed
into 'corporate enterprise'.
The result is to transform academics into
'"competitive individuals"' after government
approved products. The 'new corporate academic
self' is flexible, ready to internalise the norms
of management, supervising themselves. This simply
'reflects the logic of economic liberalism
harnessed to technologies of modern bureaucracy'
[quoting Shore — academics become '"an
individualised proletarian workforce"', compliant,
willing to change what counts as legitimate
knowledge and good practice, while managers have
become increasingly '"coercive and
authoritarian"'. Gillies uses Foucault to show how
metaphors of agility have replaced flexibility.
This might look more positive, and imply greater
agency, but it also means that workers are now
responsible for their own fate — 'agility comes
from fear, insecurity and an absence of ethos'.
This is also an entrepreneurial self,
reconfiguring itself as the market changes. This
self can simply identify with corporate desires
and 'be captured by the discourse' (447).
Holligan says that contemporary academics are more
like a peasantry in a feudal order. Scott revisits
the notion of a total institution and describes
universities as a '"reinventive institution"',
with reinvention interpreted positively. There is
'formal instruction in an institutional rhetoric'
backed up by various regulative mechanisms. It
looks voluntarist, but academics even engage in
'"techniques of mutual surveillance… [Even]…
Performative autonomy… [Is]… Compromised by the
discipline of the interaction order"'. For Craig
et al, universities with an audit culture are
actually psychotic, where audit culture becomes
'"a mechanism for coping with anxiety"', arising
from a schizoid split between good and bad
objects. Bureaucracy removes emotional problems:
'"there is a functional disconnect between the
creative rhythm of thinking which is the essence
of university life the academic (or rather, should
be in some wistful lyrics sense) and the inapt
reality of the University audit culture, which
induces the psychotic University"' (448). Ryan
speaks of academics as zombies. The effects will
be influenced by 'gender, age, social class,
ethnicity, disability, sexuality and religion' and
other variables. For example women scholars have
been disadvantaged.
The turn towards STEM at the expense of other
subjects reflects the trend — more funding is
attracted and better faculty recruited [not
students though?]. Sometimes the micropolitics
leads advocates to 'express their deeply held
paradigmatic prejudices'. Others have displayed
'complicitous silence'. Barney sees micropolitics
as '"pathological"', 'onerous work that is
disruptive, antagonistic, risky and dangerous', so
is not surprising academics remain as '"ordinary
cowards"'. Individual withdraw all 'is the most
common form of resistance and also an effective
means of protecting values and identity'. Many
academics refuse to engage with management and can
sometimes be seen 'complying with the letter, but
not the spirit, of particular requirements'.
It is hard to resist the notions of audit which
are reasonable — transparency, excellence,
accountability. Resisting them seems to make you
the opposite of all those things, '"a
semantic snare"' [quoting Darbyshire].
Management have succeeded in producing a suitable
language and make meaningful opposition to policy
'strictly impossible'. Managers own the necessary
vocabulary, including that necessary to make
legitimate objections. [Just like feminist
courtesy]. Management discourse even engages
capacities as moral agents and professionals —
self-discipline, drive to quality. The audit
culture is now so pervasive that it is almost
impossible to critique it [and assertions of
subjectivity will not do either].
Even academics trained in critique find it
difficult, because NPM has already colonised
everyday meanings of concepts like efficiency or
accountability. For Lorenz, it offers 'a
"bullshit" discourse' not concerned with truth but
with advancing agendas. Criticism is seen as
subversion, entrepreneurial autonomy is the only
good kind It is '"hermetic self-referential"'.
Even affiliating with this critique can have
negative consequences, by making it sound playful
and offering no effective analysis. Trading
insults can avoid collective action.
However, managers are also able to regulate
troublemakers, bringing them back on task, and the
techniques here 'do not exclude intimidation and
bullying' (450). There are authoritarian measures
available, especially squeezing the precarious
[confirmed by a UCU survey], and frequent
bullying. There are also 'highly seductive'
competitive forces, and some academics clearly
have benefited [with a managerial career?].
Academics are complicit because they cannot
collectively contest the system, which means any
dissenting individuals encounter '"huge costs and
penalties"'.
Even some STEM academics have been opponents of
audit and have acted solidaristically with their
non-stem colleagues. They find it difficult to
ignore what's going on once they've realised it,
but this makes them lose their innocence
politically — and feel accountable.
So the current crisis is 'real and it is harsh'
(451) and there is violence underneath land even
observed surfaces. Managerial language is the key
for Davies — one technique is to '"whip up
small-minded moralism that rewards the attack of
each small powerless person on the other, and it
shuts down creativity"'. We can already see 'the
politics of erasure' as academics have been
sacked, say in Australian universities [La Trobe]
, even in the domain of sport, exercise, health
and PE. The actual document outlining the case has
been analysed and it is contradictory and
rhetorical, but not bullish it as much as a
'powerful though highly unstable system of
meaning'.
This discourse 'does pervert into their opposites
concepts such as efficiency, quality,
transparency, accountability and flexibility', and
it is difficult to critique as a result. However
it is still unstable. We must first imagine an
alternative, and then do analysis which includes
analysing our own assumptions and biases [typical
academic deferment]. So we have the potential for
a collective effort in analysis, coming together,
as Denzin was to advocate in 2010. It might
involve speaking to other audiences, like the
public and the media who are already distrustful
of politicians. Industrial action seems less
popular with the public, especially if it is
focused only on pay not things like health and
safety, occupational health. Academics might need
to forgive '"managerial barbarians"' and invite
them.
Drawl, 'many managers are hostile to the
neoliberal agenda' [because it makes them
unpopular with colleagues and students?] They can
be critical of ideologies. They also share 'the
somatic crisis'. The might be common ground in
arguing for 'social justice' [another Denzin 2010
idea assuming a common commitment to wanting to
influence social policy]. Of course many
positivist scholars have also made useful
contributions here, so there's particular need for
them to work with qualitative ones 'within a
social justice framework'. We might also
investigate longer term implications of
managerialism [hint of Habermas on threats to the
life world].
We might reconstruct notions like accountability,
to include '"compassion, multiplicity, social
welfare, social responsibility, equity and trust"'
(453) [quoting Craig et al]. We might expose the
implications of narrow assumptions and interests
on pedagogy, as part of our 'essential role as
university faculty members'. We can disturb the
peace in a way which helps students think
critically. We might be inspired by people
such as Masefield who had wonderful views of the
University, values which cannot be reconciled with
the market [quite], yet which offer a more hopeful
future. Sparkes has a an inspiring source of his
own — Niemoller and the bit about coming first for
the communists, then Jews, then me. This should
'resonate with all scholars' (454), because we are
all vulnerable, to changes in government
directions.
A collective future may not be desired by all,
however. Some researchers in sport exercise and
health have benefited from investment, especially
physiologists. They might choose to consolidate
their power and let softer approaches with — 'it
is already happening', for example with the
sociology of sport. That needs an active defence,
including gaining greater acceptance from
sociology, acknowledging shortcomings, and trying
to be 'much more creative and vital', perhaps even
engaging with natural scientists.
Evans draws from complexity literature and
advocates 'intra disciplinary and
transdisciplinary "border crossings" of an
ideational kind' — he wants us to focus on
'"concept studies"' (455), deliberately seeking
diversity and dissenting voices, which are here
seen as particularly useful and insightful
compared to '"the lowest common denominator
solutions"'. It need not lead to reductionism or
appeasement. It does not mean we should ignore
tensions and difficulties, but rather embrace them
positively and creatively. There are risks,
because they ignore power and vested interests
again, which leaves only ideational efforts.
Perhaps this is all we can do, together with
advocacy as in Denzin. Others might be only able
to practice individual withdrawal 'as a form of
resistance' which is useful and can combat
managerialism. We should analyse power, however,
and make ourselves aware of the role of discourse,
including those which we speak. We should look for
'"lines of fault in and fracture those
discourses"' [that will be popular!]
We must understand neoliberalism how it works and
what its effects are, an attempt to assess them.
This will at least open 'up the possibility of us
not being that which we perform' [role distance!].
We also need to avoid our own cliches and
platitudes and comforting views of the world. We
should continue to criticise 'the vapid, cliche
ridden "qualipak"' [by taking it seriously I
think] we should continually ask 'what do you
mean?' to hold managers accountable, to challenge
their use of managerial language, even '"make a
point of not playing the game, of not reciting the
rhetoric on queue [sic]"' [quoting Loughlin].
Comparative data from other countries might also
be useful to examine the precise intertwining of
audit, NPM and neoliberalism, and get ideas to
'contest, challenge and resist their oppressive
aspects'. (457).
There is no simple response, but we should look
for signs of hope, like this journal inviting
dialogue, and colleagues who are prepared to act
as allies some institutions still support
diversity and people in them should support
others. Denzin's hope for fruitful dialogue is
therefore both possible and necessary for
democratic community.
[Cracking references]
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