An ethico-aesthetic paradigm as an alternative discourse to the quality assurance discourse

Abstract

This article analyses the discourse and practices of quality assurance and quality control through the lens of neo-liberal governing as expressed in economic rationalities such as new public management, total quality management, public choice and human capital. As an alternative to this form of governing, an ethico-aesthetic paradigm is enacted, inspired by Spinoza’s concept of ‘affect’ and Félix Guattari’s and Gilles Deleuze’s ‘ontology of immanence’. This opens up to a reconstruction of the pragmatic scene of didactics as it border-crosses the discourse and practices of ‘action at a distance’, manipulating the classroom space from outside of the situation by measurements and procedures constructed by others. Moreover, it opens up to another construction of the human subject – a processual and event-centred construction of human subjectivity – which also opens up to leakages, movement, creativity and hope in the present.