Based on ethnographic short stories of lived experiences in design schools, in this dialogic essay, Hayfaa Chalabi, and Maya Ober – two design educators, share reflections on the challenges and struggles of institutional work. The everyday life, interactions, and encounters are at the center of our analysis, following feminist traditions that lend importance to mundane daily activities as socio-political configurations.
Looking at the tensions between the institutional and the activist, we explore the politics and the everyday of both dominant and counter-hegemonic educational practices and their social impact. How do these practices operate in the everyday interactions between students and teachers on the micro-political level? How do we negotiate traditional practices and institutional resistance? Focusing on our experiences in design education in opposition to dominant powers, epistemologies and design traditions, we look at tensions, struggles, and resistance in the everyday.
Edited by Post-Radical Pedagogy: Nida Abdullah, Christopher Lee, and Xinyi Li. Published by SetMargins Press. 2025.
