The principal is present: Producing psy-ontologies through post/psychology- informed leadership practices II

Abstract

This chapter explores how affective states of mind, such as presence and vigilance, emerge, transform, and disappear as performative effects of leading students’ learning milieu. Specifically, we follow how the use of post-psychologies targeting milieu, contexts, relations, and bodies are centrally incorporated into leadership practices. Post-psychologies are psychological concepts and practices that go beyond modern psychology and are concerned about the autonomous individual. These post-psy-informed leadership practices are, on the one hand, producing and bringing life to certain feelings and affective state of minds, while on the other hand, taking the life out of others. In addition, these processes are carefully interwoven with practices informed by modern psychologies. Inspired by Michel Foucault and Brian Massumi, these types of post-psy-informed leadership practices can be conceptualised as an ontopower radically producing and constituting psy-ontologies and affective economies. All in all, this results in an interesting, however, muddy, affective economy, and a situation, which again asks for new thoughts on the entanglements of leadership practices and post/psychologies. The chapter is a hopeful contribution to such psy-interruptions.