by Adam McDade
Kai Syng Tan is an antidote to the stale musty stink that is emitted from the corridors of Russel Group and Ivy League universities. Her monograph ‘Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership’ serves as an exemplar of one of the books core theses—that knowledge construction, dissemination, and cultural values must not be confided within the paradigm that is privileged within the academy and society more broadly. As the title suggests, the book identifies problematic manners of operating that we have culturally accepted and suggests alternative modes of operation—ones that foreground perspectives that have not only been shunned as lesser, but that she argues are integral to a more equitable, liberated manner of leadership.
Similar to powerful decolonial change-maker and former design senior academic Dr Dori Tunstall whom Tan also cites as a reference—Tan plays the game of academia from in the inside,—utilising her privilege as a tenured professor to initiate progress. Examples include a critique on knowledge construction by citing poet-teacher bell hooks (1989) on the margin(s) as a vantage point for power and openness. As a former (albeit briefly) design academic, this need for antagonism became apparent to me during my first attempt at a Design PhD in 2014, leading me to quit after just three months due to feeling alienated, and frankly, bored by the uninspiring discourse and culture. Tan recognises how frameworks favoured in design (such as the ‘probable, possible, and preferable’ (P.11)) are far from universal (preferred by whom?) and provides alternatives for us to consider, such as ‘productive antagonisms’ (p.16) and entangling knowledge from multiple disciplinary discourses to see how they “rub up against each other” in a bricolage manner (pp.167-168).
REIMAGINING ‘LEADERSHIP’
Spanning across twenty-six chapters, each corresponds with a letter in the alphabet—just not in conventional alphabetic order. Rather than reading in a linear fashion, Tan’s writing is ‘tentacular’. Themes of chapters function as separate bodies of intelligence that interweave and inter-relate to form a cohesive but lateral whole. Tan subverts the traditions of academia fusing outrageous hilarity with hard-hitting sincerity. Chapter 17, titled “Q: Have Quickies with Other Species” is a prime example of this, in which she invents a speed-dating platform titled ‘Hinder’, and presents a series of dialogues around better futures with others ranging from cockroaches to performative allies. Tan takes playfulness seriously. In doing so, she highlights, pokes fun at, and encourages alternatives to tired conventions that are readily accepted. These tentacular approaches take shape as fists that are punching upwards. This manner of writing is not contrary for its own sake, but rather demonstrates how knowledge and leadership can be ‘neuro-futurised’. Leadership is reframed as “..about asking better questions” rather than giving answers, and as being “governed by love” (p.77). This sense of love comes through as the primary driver behind the books central message—Tan cares about those who are repressed enough to do something about it. A lot of things, infact (see her website at: kaisyngtan.com/artful/kai/)—including this monograph.
POSITIONALITY AND PRIVILEGE
Central to the narrative thread is Tan’s identity as a woman with Southeast Asian heritage and working-class background who has been diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia, and ADHD (p.43), all of which intersect. These qualities combine to qualify Tan with the perfect positionality to discuss the topics in question, however even reading the book as a cis, white, heteronormative male born in Northern England, I find resonance. Growing up in a working-class single-parent household as a son of a full-time bar server mother and full-time alcoholic father, I was the first of my large family to go the university. It has taken me four degrees to not feel intimidated by academia, and to understand that the problem is not my unworthiness, but rather the conventions, values, and modes of operating that academia is so often rooted in. Despite all my privileges, I have not felt that I fit in a system made by others who superficially look like I do. Even the systemically privileged fall short in our current paradigm, and the system doesn’t work for them.
While reading, I found myself contemplating on the importance of these themes for others like myself—those who straddle multiple pathways but never feel like they belong in any of them. I benefit from my cultural privileges that I have been born into, but I’ve still been brought up poor and in what would largely be considered difficult conditions. I deeply empathise with marginalised communities, but I don’t really fit in to any (or at least I’m yet to have been medically pathologized). I have a design doctorate, but I can’t get work as an academic (too niche of a focus), I can’t make it as a designer (too weird of a style). I’m still more fortunate than most globally, yet I still spend my days at present applying to work in coffee shops to try and pay my rent. I know I am not alone in this position, as many creatives are in the same boat, yet we have become what in Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher (2009) terms, “reflexively impotent”—knowing that things are bad, but not feeling like we can do much about it. Enter Kai—showing us how it is done. This highlights the book’s subtitle, ‘An A-Z of collective liberation’ [emphasis added].
IMAGES IN BOOK
Tan’s background and training are in creative practice, and many of the chapters include visual outputs to her prolific body of work. These visuals aid the communication of the ideas they relate to in a manner that cannot be communicated through text alone, functioning as examples of many of the points made, rather than simply decoration. Tan’s arts training (and being) additionally informs her advocacy for leadership strategy—recognising the value of how creatives problem solve in their work and implementing it in their approach. This notion is apparent throughout and given specific attention in Chapter 20 under the title, ‘Island-hopping’ (pp.165–174)—a titled that highlights value of knowledge gained in liminal spaces, intersectionality, and a 360° worldview.
CONCLUSION
The book concludes with a concise (little over 100-word) but powerful chapter that invites reflection, interaction, and collaboration, as well as leading the reader to ‘kick-start’ their re-modelled approach to leadership. As at home in the bookshelf of a university library, government official, or a new parent wanting to raise their child in an equitable world, ‘Neuro Futurism’ dismantles the shackles of its traditional context as an academic book, functioning as much as a creative provocation as it does a text.
Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership : An A-Z Towards Collective Liberation (2024) is published by Palgrave Macmillan and can be ordered here
AUTHOR BIO
Adam McDade is an illustrator, designer, tattooist, and independent scholar from Sunderland, based in Manchester, UK. He holds a PhD in Design (2021) and produced the first ever piece of academic research to utilise tattooing practice as a research methodology. His website can be found here, and he uses the handle @adammcdadeillustration on social media platforms.
