ABSTRACT
In a political context “subversion” has been characterized as a betrayal of nationalism. However, post-structuralists, among them feminists in all design professions, have more recently prescribed a very broad form of subversion. In this view - my view - subversion is directed at dominant cultural forces. Leslie Bow (2001) defines subversion as “‘living at the borders’, like metaphors of travel, migrancy, or the floating world, (exemplifying) the theoretical shift toward conceptualizing identity as fluid, shifting, continually negotiated and contextualized” (p. 25). Instructional designers in learning organizations often experience conflict working within the dominant, didactic, disciplinary expert culture of academia (Woo 2015), as do faculty members working multidisciplinarily, minority faculty, sessional instructors and those who, like me, work in marginalized fields such as continuing education and community engagement (Campbell 2008). Further, my colleagues and I have found that instructional designers who confront the long-prevailing, and normative, narrative of scientific design practice have been marginalized in their cultural communities (Schwier et al. 2004). This chapter tells a story of subversive practice in course design that ultimately failed to engage participants in the course. Throughout the experience of designing and teaching the course I felt betrayed and was left questioning the core values that inform my practice and identity.
