Spatialisation of power
9.1 Introduction
9.2.2 The staffroom, boardroom and office and reception areas as spatial points of power
The construction of the staff room space reflects various technologies of power and also shows discourses of normalisation and surveillance. This is reflected in the seating arrangements and design of these spaces. These diagrams are included to illustrate the layout of these areas during meetings and how the design of the physical area permits surveillance.
9.2.2.1 Physical space and practices
The design and layout of the physical space becomes a site for the play of power relations. The layout of spaces in these areas is more than a physical space but an institutional and social space where hegemonic practices are reinforced. Staff conduct is regulated by time (prompt attendance, prayer) and space (designated positioning of individuals in the staff meeting, with male staff
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seated separately from female staff and the principal/deputy principal occupying the central position- see figure vii below). In the staffroom, the SMT members sit together, male staff sit together, separate from the female staff.
Figure (vi) Set up of the staffroom for staff meetings
A general acceptance is that the appropriate conduct is achieved through rhetoric of ‘good’ or
‘acceptable’ conduct in meetings. A disciplinary gaze controls the meeting. Generally there is no talking out of turn. The chair (principal) controls the meeting with cautionary comments like “Can we call the meeting to order please. Staff let’s put a lid on it please”. The disciplinary gaze extends further to record which staff member leaves the meeting:
Mr Dookia has got an emergency. Record that he is leaving the meeting.
The fact that this leave-taking during a meeting is recorded in the minutes of the meeting shows that the surveillance is intended to deter other staff members from leaving. Whilst a range of South African policies have a definite presence in the school (South African Schools Act, 84 of 1996;
Labour Relations Act of 1995; South African Council of Educators Code of Conduct of 1996, etc.), the disciplinary gaze erodes the formal liberties of choice, equality and freedom by creating spaces like the Panopticon where the individual is constantly monitored. Legislation introduced
Female Staff
Male Staff
Principal/ Deputy Principal
Door
Chalkboard
Kitchen Area
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since 1994, intended to protect educators, becomes subverted at school level due to techniques of power like surveillance and normalisation. Schools come to resemble prisons, all of which have a common interest in shaping the subject (in this case the educators or the learners). These regulatory apparatuses work through normalisation.
On the other hand, the principal as the manager of the institution may feel powerless in the face of the forces of economy, of legislation or of the unions. Educator strike action over wage dispute is a case in point, indicating that power relations are embedded in wider societal structures. While rules and regulations were created to control employees, they also give considerable power to the employees: for instance ‘work to rule’ – when workers only do what is required by regulation, for example the ‘go slow’ method, used by South African workers as an alternative to going on strike, which allows employees to disrupt organisational activities without breaking any rules. Foucault made a clear distinction between “relations of power” and “states of domination” (Deacon, 2003, p. 168-177). The former, consisting of actions which modify the actions of others, assume, depend on and make possible "a whole field of responses, reactions, results, and possible inventions"
(Foucault, 1982,p. 220); the latter are "firmly set and congealed"; they occur when an individual or group 'blocks a field of relations of power', "renders them impassive and invariable" and prevents "all reversibility of movement" (Foucault, 1987, p. 114).
The office reception area, in its design also permits the gaze to be present when the staff enter the area to sign the morning register. The signing area is in full view of the principal. With his ‘open door’ policy, the door is literally and figuratively open allowing the disciplinary gaze to proliferate this space.
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Figure (vii) Set up of the principal’s office and reception area
RONEO/PHOTO COPYING ROOM
Door
Door
Deputy Principal’s Office
Door
PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
Door
Principal
DESK
SMT SMT SMT
SMT
SMT
SMT
SMT
SCHOOL SAFE
SECRETARY’S OFFICE
Door
Door
RONEO/PHOTO COPYING ROOM
Door
Secretary’s Admin Area
BENCH
B E N C H
Reception Area
Stairs leading downstairs
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Other surveillance assistants are present in this space: the school administrative personnel are seated in a glass enclosure in the reception area to monitor the staff, learners and visitors entering the area. During an SMT meeting, the principal is centrally seated with SMT members around him, allowing the principal full view of all SMT members. The principal at the centre of power takes a central position in chairing the meeting.
Figure (viii) Set up of the boardroom for SGB meetings
A physical arrangement similar to the principal’s office during an SMT meeting is present during an SGB meeting. The Chair of the SGB is the centre of power and he has full view of all members and the manner in which they interact.
9.2.2.2 Documentation
In the excerpt below, captured at a staff meeting, staff members, like learners, are individuated by almost endless schemes of documentation: attendance registers, leave taking, performance review, references, etc. The staff meeting becomes the site where this documentation and the reasons for keeping them gain prominence. It becomes a site where deviant or off- the- course conduct is pronounced, exemplified and reprimanded.
I am saying that members of this school can be charged for misconduct. To give you an example, if you come late to school I am expected to calculate how much of that seven
SGB
Chair SGB members
Learner Reps
Door Principal & Staff
Reps
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hours you came late for. The files are already open. It’s a cumulative, I am not going to ask you. You have signed that you came late. I am compelled to write to the leave section and say deduct from the capped leave. If that is done deduct from the pensionable service if it reaches that stage on a three year cycle. I am inviting you all to peruse the document.
Pushpa [senior clerk] is going to make copies per department and we are going to invite Mr Reddy to come here. Is that fine? (principal at staff meeting).
Pushpa, the senior clerk, is used as the principal’s proxy in ensuring that documentation is kept and validated. While practices are more subtle than those used on learners, documentation on educators was used to regulate behaviour and create a docile subject that knows the rules and consequences of not following them. Higher authorities, such as the DoE officials (Mr Reddy- from the leave section), can be beckoned to reinforce the message - and the message is one of misconduct. Coached in management discourses of ‘risk’, ‘law’ and ‘accountability’, the educator is led to believe that this is the right thing to do. In Littler and Salaman’s (1982 cited in Ball 1988,p.25) words:
The establishment of management as a separate function…with unique expertise and responsibilities, and with major and critical claims to authority…upon which the efficiency of the whole enterprise depends…is a crucial first step to have control over the workforce…because once this conception of management has been accepted by workers, they have in effect abdicated from any question of, or resistance to, many aspects of their domination.
Foucault (1977,p.156) sees this as a form of management in which power
…is not totally entrusted to someone who would exercise it alone, over others, in an absolute fashion; rather, this machine is one in which everyone is caught, those who exercise power as well as those who are subjected to it.
The principal as a representative of the ‘employer’ is also under close scrutiny by DoE officials from the districts and province, SGB members, the community, and even from educators and learners.
9.2.2.3 Hierarchical observation
The layout and seating of the staffroom and the board room (see figures vii, viii and ix) resembles the Panopticon in structure. The chairperson of the meeting is able to stand on a central stage and conduct the meeting from a position of power. The staffroom and the administrative area are
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physically located in a separate block nearest the car park leading to the school gates.This block is at a high level overlooking the assembly area and the rest of the school. Most schools in South Africa have been designed in a similar way. The design permits a frontage of business-like efficiency that is separated from the ‘noisiness and messiness’ of where learners would be present for the majority of the school day. It also permits a measure of pristine silence and busy-ness for those in occupancy at times other than recess. The administrative block where the principal’s office is located is also situated ideally to keep a watchful eye on the whole organisation: car park, security gate, staffroom and classrooms.
Educators occupy open spaces in the staffroom. The absence of demarcated, closed spaces opens observations from all sides for actions and communication. The space also exposes an individual’s actions and communication to multiple witnesses. Conversation takes places in softer tones and undertones so as not to be overheard and disruptive. The structure also permits observation of conformance or non-conformance to the SACE code of conduct as any forms of misconduct are observed, recorded and articulated. In the extract below, the principal’s gaze extends to the classrooms even though visibility is not direct - the gaze is one of getting information from other educators and SMT members:
Reports have come from parents, reports have come from children and this is serious stuff… There is an educator in this school; I have asked one or two people in this school to do some pastoral care. I am saying it upfront. You are not allowed to ask any child to massage you in the class. Now I am saying to you, all of us from time to time, you might have a backache, neck ache, spondolosis and so on. I am saying to you very openly and clearly you must not allow any child to touch you. Let alone if you take the child to the HOD’s office and say massage my neck or press here in the back you know something got caught. Please I am saying it with all humility and seriousness at the same time. I cannot defend you. I don’t want to give you names. I cannot defend you (principal at a staff meeting).
The gaze extends from parents and learners who report to the principal. Parents are the eyes and ears of the principal. Exerting power is not simply a form of action, but a form of social interaction that has to be more or less negotiated each time. Hierarchical observation permits constant surveillance and self-surveillance on the one hand but it also leads to the productive exercise of power. The staffroom is a space where heated debate on critical issues takes place and it can be an open space for dialogue and discussion. In this section, the design and arrangement of
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physical spaces has reinforced techniques of power (normalisation and surveillance). The physical space has become a space for the practice of institutional power relations as well.