Sara Ahmed’s What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use (2019) interrogates the structures that shape institutional and design practices, exploring how systems of power determine the possibilities of engagement, participation, and exclusion. Through Ahmed’s lens, “use” is not neutral but an instrument of reinforcement and regulation—objects, spaces, and institutions become worn by the patterns of those who are granted access and rendered obsolete by those who are not. Reading the article inspires me to think with feminist design pedagogy, which questions the dominant narratives shaping design education and seeks alternative ways of knowing and practicing.
Feminist Design Pedagogy and Spatial Politics
Feminist pedagogy, much like Ahmed’s notion of “queer use,” attempts to repurpose and challenge existing frameworks by acknowledging lived experiences, positionality, and intersectionality. We could possibly argue that discomfort is not a failure but a necessary condition for transformation—by confronting biases and privileges, students and educators can begin to rethink power dynamics in design. However, this process is neither straightforward nor universally welcomed; institutions often resist such shifts, as they challenge deeply ingrained hierarchies and economic interests.
This resistance parallels Ahmed’s critique of institutional diversity efforts, which often perform inclusion without enacting meaningful structural change. When feminist design pedagogy attempts to engage with voices traditionally excluded from design history and practice, it frequently encounters institutional barriers that dictate what counts as “valid” knowledge. The discomfort experienced in these pedagogical spaces—whether through student resistance, faculty pushback, or institutional inertia—reveals how deeply ingrained ideas of design function as mechanisms of exclusion.
Doreen Massey’s Space, Place, and Gender (1994) provides further insight into how spatial structures reinforce gendered experiences. Massey’s argument that space is socially constructed aligns with both Ahmed’s concerns about how institutional norms shape who gets to participate in knowledge production. If certain modes of working, thinking, and existing are deemed “out of place,” then feminist design pedagogy must actively create spaces where these forms of knowledge are recognized.
Teaching Experience and Institutional Barriers
In my own teaching experience, I have observed how students who challenge conventional notions of design—whether through exploring personal narratives, non-Western perspectives, or non-commercial applications—often struggle to justify their work within institutional assessment criteria. Some students express frustration that their projects, which engage with feminist or decolonial critiques, are met with skepticism or deemed too “subjective” compared to more traditional, commercially viable outputs. Similar to the very structures that Ahmed critiques, where institutional norms dictate whose work is valued and whose is rendered marginal.
To use feminist pedagogy as an active, material practice that extends beyond theoretical discussions, I designed and hosted a workshop earlier this year to reimagine the use of writing tools and reinvent gestures of writing for creating typography and textual language.
Drawing on the ideas of Vilém Flusser and asemic writing, the workshop invited participants to question the functional constraints of writing instruments and the standardization of textual representation. By altering or even constructing their own tools, participants explored new, embodied ways of mark-making that defied traditional legibility. Many expressed both excitement and unease—some struggled with the lack of predefined structure, while others found liberation in moving beyond linguistic constraints. Similar to the notion of queer use, as students repurposed objects and gestures in ways that diverged from their intended function. By physically altering the means of writing, students engaged in a direct critique of dominant typographic traditions.
References:
Ahmed, S. (2019) What’s the use? On the uses of use. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Flesler, G., Neidhardt, A. and Ober, M. (2025) ‘A conversation on the discomfort of feminist design pedagogy’, in Mareis, C. and Paim, N. (eds.) Design struggles. Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 205–225.
Massey, D. (1994) Space, place, and gender. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Matrix (1984) Making space: Women and the man-made environment. London: Pluto Press.
Flusser, V. (2011) Does writing have a future? Translated by N.A. Roth. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.