An Organizational 'Mini' Monster: An Anarchist Critique of the Hyper-Hierarchization of a Small Department at a South African University

The present article is dedicated to the hyper-hierarchization of small-scale organizational spaces (and the most immediate ones for most academics)--university departments. By using the anarchist critique of hierarchies to deconstruct the architecture of an undisclosed department located at one of the South African universities, the author demonstrates the potential organizational monstrosity of such rudimentary educational environments. While, in purely quantitative terms, the hierarchical architecture observed may not seem extreme--the structure involves nine members, four echelons, and 17-19 governing positions--it is overwhelming and absurd from a qualitative perspective and complies with all maladies of hierarchies identified in anarchist scholarship: it is panoptical, informationally unidirectional and, thus, organizationally unintelligent, as well as opaque for both lower and upper layers. In order to combat this oppressive structure, a series of tactics with which one can disrupt hierarchical systems and work towards their destruction, are proposed. These tactics constitute the first steps that must precede the construction of more horizontal types of organizations. [Includes a Foreword by the author, following his dismissal by Stellenbosch University, South Africa, for writing this article.]