Thesis

1 What do you want to make?

I would like to explore the bureaucratic rituals inside the educational institution I am currently part as a master’s student. The case of wdka. How bureaucratic rituals change through years inside this institution and how (or if) these changes are related at some point with european/dutch policies around (migration) movement and border/migration control? How the transformation of the institution itself is depicted/implied through/in bureaucracy or established by these kind of dramaturgies. What are these dramaturgies about? My intention is to navigate, access and look through the administration documents, the bureaucratic ritualist apparatus, the way this apparatus usually looks at me, inside my (privileged) soul and other’s people souls. How bureaucracy constitute a border that needs to be performed and what does it mean not to be performed efficiently. The grey cold zone of visibility/invisibility of this border, the vulnerability created and the urgency to start putting it again on the table.

What do you mean the document is not universal and neutral?

There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism , Benjamin

2 How do you plan to make it?

I am planning to do a small field research by collecting and looking through the archive of documents that administration holds through the years and dive into the plain text and the structure of these paperwork. What made the potential students to become officially students and what went wrong with the ones that didn’t make it? How the amount of the paperwork changes and to which direction? What does it happen with the validity of the documents and who is in charge of? Try to find a brief history of the requirements and to become as student and the

3 What is your timetable?

October

• reading and annotating rituals
• look for potential material in my communication with administrators when applying
• ask peers and other students about their experience or administration stories. How does this work onto their document?
• investigating the structure and aesthetic of the forms that you borrowed from Leslie. Make a potential timeline of the forms and see how they transformed through the years. Make an archive.
• structure the interview with course coordinator (Leslie <3)
• interview moment and transcription
• make and play with my forms and distribute them. Work with bureaucratic literature for fun and for inspiration and to open questions behind bureaucratic language aesthetics, inaccesibility, predetermined ways of reading understanding. Back again to the dusty piles of paper
• Always checking if I still have a question.

November

• reading and annotating rituals
• prepare my forms for zine camp and Leeszaal Leeszaal event
• zine camp 5-6/11/2023
• Leeszaal moment 7/11/2023
• thesis outline 17/11/2023
• November 21, 15:00 – 17:00 go to INSTITUTE’S PARTICIPATION COUNCIL (IMR) and keep notes
• Investigation of the some governmental text, law, language. Be careful not to aesthetisize bureaucracy!
• structure the interview with administrator(s)of coia
• interview moment and transcription
• make and play with my forms and distribute them. See what is there.
• Always checking if I still have a question.

(...)

December

• reading and annotating rituals
• make and play with my forms and distribute them.
• assessment 11/12/2023
• notetaking on assessment 11/12/2023
• Always checking if I still have a question.

(...)

January

• reading and annotating rituals
• make stamp – form

(...)

February

reading and annotating rituals

(...)

March

reading and annotating rituals

(...)

April

reading and annotating rituals

(...)

May

(...)

June

(...)

5 Who can help you and how?

• Tutors,
• Leslie
• xpub friends,
• administrators of wdka, piet zwart, coia and probably

7 Relation to a larger context

table of content

8 Potential References/bibliography

• Archive Public

• Archive : Ariella Azoulay
• The dispossessed Ursula Le Guin
• Peter Principle
• The hopeless university
• Bourdieu: a social critique of judgment of taste
• writing machines katharine hayles
• (A cyborg manifesto Donna haraway)
• Archive Fever: a freudian impression Deridda
• (Forced) Movement
• Madeline Gins The Saddest Thing is that I Have Had to Use Words
• Karen Brodine Woman Sitting at the machine Thinking
• Radical Administration Festival brochure 2020
• Ursula Biemann Perrforming the Border documentary
• The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, David Graeber
• the castle kafka
• Governing Asylum without “Being There”: Ghost Bureaucracy, Outsourcing, and the Unreachability of the State
• Ruben Pater CAPS - the good citizen
• The Tyrany of transparency Marilyn Strathern
• https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/3/169
• Ariella Azouay Un-Documented – Unlearning Imperial Plunder documentary
• https://www.government.nl/topics/asylum-policy/tackling-the-refugee-problem
• https://www.government.nl/topics/asylum-policy/tackling-the-refugee-problem/support-to-greece-for-unaccompanied-minors
• https://asylumineurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/report-download_aida_nl_update.v_final.pdf
• https://greece.refugee.info/en-us/articles/4984594750615
• https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%B9%CF%83%CE%BC%CF%8C%CF%82_%CE%94%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%B2%CE%BB%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%85
• https://www.talkingobjectslab.org/about
• IMR OC https://static.mywdka.nl/wdka/boards/institutes-participation-council/
• https://www.nuffic.nl/en