The lockdown files: university performance and development reviews (PRDs) as a form of governmentality

This chapter offers a critical perspective on leadership and management in higher education by exploring the process of performance review and development (PRD) as a form of governmentality (‘lockdown’ in the discourse ofCOVID-19). The form of the chapter—a series of dialogic exchanges between co-authors—subverts the processes of subjectification that normally characterise such exchanges, where persons are placed on either side of a line that nobody drew. This unique form of representation also challenges the ‘governmentality’ that is implicit in conventional forms of academic discourse. The ethical relation between the co-authors is foregrounded through their correspondence as they embark upon the process of performance review and development (PRD) that is a common feature of academic life in the UK. They explore the fault lines between leadership and management in higher education in the context of a particular dyadic relationship. Drawing upon a brief dialogic exchange that occurred within the context of teaching and learning, the authors explore how notions of leadership are implicated in the broader enterprise of teaching and learning in initial teacher education (ITE). They conclude by drawing out a series of distinctions between leadership and management in terms that foreground the Foucauldian notion of governmentality.