ABSTRACT
What happened to me on the way to the (fi rst European Social) Forum in Florence Italy in November 2002 was not exactly funny as much as ironic and disconcerting. I’ve taken some creative license with this paraphrased title in order to discuss, in this chapter, two neatly juxtaposed contradictory moments. The fi rst moment occurred whilst I was on the plane to the European Social Forum, traveling with a friend/colleague from another English university. She told me a tale of what I will describe herein as performative accountability she recently experienced at her university that spoke to the increasingly pervasive top-down surveillance and (still somewhat subtle) coercion introduced through practices of accountability with which neoliberal marketization is restructuring Higher Education institutions and the identities of those in these institutions.
