UNIVERSITY AS THE SPACE OF CLASHING DISCOURSES. STRATEGIES AND TACTICS FOR SURVIVAL IN THE ERA OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Strategies and tactics are the key categories in Michel de Certeau’s (1988) concept of quotidian practices, which analysed and interpreted actions undertaken at higher education institutions faced with the COVID-19 pandemic. Following de Certeau, it is presumed that strategies denote actions taken by entities which exercise power over a space or domain, and are able to regulate relations with the outside, e.g. through the introduction and enforcement of laws, while tactics are employed by those who, navigating a territory which is not their own, have to submit to authority and law, but do so in their own way in that they negotiate and interpret rules in a more or less active and creative fashion, taking “shortcuts” and circumventing the law, conceiving ad hoc solutions, selectively choosing and bending norms, etc.

This conceptualization enabled us to examine research problems relating to the “top-down” and “bottom-up” actions taken at a university in response to the pandemic; the clashing discourses and everyday practices of negotiating meanings, threats and solutions; the establishment of superiority-subordination relations and seeking ways to forge subjectivity and agency in a situation of protracted pandemic crisis. This paper relies on secondary data analysis, analysis of official documents and available reports concerned with the functioning of universities during the pandemic, including an analysis of the strategies adopted at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (UWM) with respect to pandemic threats, specifically targeting the ordinances and decisions of the university authorities. In order to identify and explore the tactics, this study takes advantage of the results of an online survey from the turn of 2022 involving a sample of 172 persons employed at the UWM. Importantly, the survey featured open and semi-open questions, which went beyond ready-made response patterns. As a result of the analyses, two paradigms were identified, i.e. institutional and staff discourses, within which the UWM’s strategy of colour and the staff tactics of continuation, accommodation, embracing and resistance were identified.

This conceptualization enabled us to examine research problems relating to the “top-down” and “bottom-up” actions taken at a university in response to the pandemic; the clashing discourses and everyday practices of negotiating meanings, threats and solutions; the establishment of superiority-subordination relations and seeking ways to forge subjectivity and agency in a situation of protracted pandemic crisis. This paper relies on secondary data analysis, analysis of official documents and available reports concerned with the functioning of universities during the pandemic, including an analysis of the strategies adopted at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (UWM) with respect to pandemic threats, specifically targeting the ordinances and decisions of the university authorities. In order to identify and explore the tactics, this study takes advantage of the results of an online survey from the turn of 2022 involving a sample of 172 persons employed at the UWM. Importantly, the survey featured open and semi-open questions, which went beyond ready-made response patterns. As a result of the analyses, two paradigms were identified, i.e. institutional and staff discourses, within which the UWM’s strategy of colour and the staff tactics of continuation, accommodation, embracing and resistance were identified.