A performative critical management studies: Developing a critical management pedagogy as intellectual activism praxis

Abstract

In this paper, I take Contu’s call for a performative turn in critical management studies into my teaching as a form of intellectual activism praxis. I problematise management learning and education in regard to perpetuating inequalities, and offer a critical management pedagogy as a form of intellectual activism praxis to help infuse management education with a critical and socially conscience awareness. This paper is a reflexive account of the development of my critical management pedagogy and an analytical discussion weaving together the practice of a critical management education with intellectual activism. I argue that business schools need to question the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and our global epoch of crisis and uncertainty, and that as management educators we must consider how we might inform this relationship. In our teaching, we are often complicit in practices and institutions that reproduce economic and environmental exploitation, white supremacy, heteronormativity and colonial and patriarchal relations. Inspired by Freire’s critical pedagogy, I developed a critical management module to try engage students’ critical and social conscience by providing them with a space to think critically about the social, political and economic phenomena that shape individuals and societies, and the tools to engage in new ways of thinking to challenge systematic inequalities. This paper contributes insight into the context and praxis of developing and delivering this module.