Subtle activism: Heterotopic principles for unsettling contemporary academia from within

Abstract

Research on academic activism tends to foreground vociferous and explicit forms of activism that pursue predefined political agendas. Against this backdrop, this article proposes that academic activism can take more subtle forms. Writing as an academic activist collective, we unpack what subtle activism might look like within the context of contemporary academia. We use Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to argue that subtle activism can expand the space of what is possible in academia today by experimenting with quietly unsettling norms rather than overtly opposing or rejecting them. We offer a set of principles that might underpin a subtle activist agenda, extrapolated from practices from colleagues and from own activist collective. We hope that these principles may serve to inspire other academics wishing to engage in subtle activism by unsettling everyday practices that discreetly challenge the status quo, thereby contributing to gently shifting the agenda for how it is possible to conduct intellectual work in the contemporary neoliberal university context.

Critical Qualitative Inquiry: An Optimistic Counter in/to a Conservative Backslide

“…Tsing’s (2005) assertion that “friction reminds us that heterogeneous and unequal encounters can lead to new arrangements of culture and power” (p. 10) became a springboard for me to review my methods of “subtle-activism” (Kjærgaard et al, 2023, p. 1)—that is, the activism of assigning critical readings throughout the semester. I wondered if perhaps I was not so subtle or too subtle, or both.…”