Qualitative Inquiry, Activism, the Academy, and the Infinite Game: An Introduction to the Special Issue

This is the first of two special issues on qualitative inquiry as activism. This first issue focuses upon activism and/in the academy (academic work, academic cultures, academic practices, etc.), the second on activism in the processes of research itself and activism beyond the academy, in the world. Two issues with different themes, but the overlaps and conversations between them are both obvious and significant: inquiry is part of, rooted in, the academy; inquiry and the academy are both of, and in, the world. Drawing upon the concept of the “infinite game” where, rather than being driven by the need to win and compete (the “finite game”), we argue for the collective, collaborative work of giving close, deep attention to the human, the nonhuman, and the more-than-human in order to “create and recreate our institutions,” with activism key to this work.

A Literature Review and Overview of Performance Management: A Guide to the Field

The underlining presupposition and the supposition of performance management as a study field have been controversial or have a non-defined concept ever since the field was introduced to the mainstream economy. The paper covers the concept of performance management as a business analyst, scrum master, archeologist, and leader. The research delves into the founding history of performance management and analyzes critical performance management tools. Our findings show that performance management should be seen, managed, and played as an infinite game while creating incentives for the players who will, in turn, drive productivity in any industry.

O ensaísmo de Ana Hatherly: “na fronteira entre o diálogo e o duelo com tudo”

One of the medullary aspects of Ana Hatherly’s poetics is its interest in the materiality of language, subjected to continuous investigations in the most varied forms. Each work seems to be a piece of the same incessant research and shows an attention to the performativity and physicality of writing, to the search for its most uneasy or suspensive – essayistic? – voltage. If the essayist, eminently experimental, sets up an “infinite game” and textualizes a “tactile tought” (Jean-Christophe Bailly), it is worth speculating on the configuration of an essayism in many of Hatherly’s poetic and visual experiences. Although the author also collects explicitly reflective texts, this essay starts from the hypothesis.

An Infinite Game

What aspects of game theory and value theory get tossed out the window for pragmatism when your life is actually on the line? In this work of philosophical short fiction, the narrator is held by a mad man interested in delighting his grotesque ideas with a simple game. He has lined up four prisoners, front to back, selected for position by lottery, and intends to see how far his bayonet saw blade will penetrate. The first man in lines knows he will die, so he turns, runs, and is shot dead. Now the second man in line knows he will die. Our narrator tries to encourage the new front man to die with honor, rather than run away. Of course, his real motivation is to save his own life. While the narrator is talking to the man at the front of the line, their captor stabs the person in the back of the line, killing him. He has changed the rules, and now the game is over. "Everything" the mad man argues, "is a game." The only real question is, "can I play?"