Auditing and the unconscious: Managerialism�s memory traces

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Date

2023

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Taylor and Francis Group

Abstract

This paper takes J.M. Coetzee�s �The Mind of Apartheid� as a point of departure in thinking about audits in universities. Using the psychoanalytic framing of apartheid that Coetzee puts in place, audit is likened here to a form of obsessional neurosis. If this is indeed a plausible diagnosis of audits � and this should remain a question for deliberation � then a set of questions emerges for post-apartheid universities, which the paper seeks to develop. By what scenes from the past are audits haunted? What memory traces do audits reactivate? What phantoms do audits seek to exorcise? Can we speak of the demons by which auditing is possessed? And what sort of working through the past would this call for?

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Keywords

Apartheid, Audit, Managerialism, Higher education, South Africa

Citation

Truscott, R. (2023). Auditing and the unconscious: Managerialism�s memory traces. Social Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2023.2167422