An Introduction to Disrupting the Disciplines

Welcome to this special issue on Disrupting the Disciplines. Disrupting was originally inspired by Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf and Pace 2004), in the context of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada and the report of the TRC Commission in 2015. As colleagues, we realized that we needed to think more deeply about the disciplines themselves—who they include and exclude, what knowledge is of most worth, and who decides. Decoding the Disciplines employs an interview process to help experts uncover tacit knowledge in their disciplinary knowledge to help them better teach students. Disrupting the Disciplines, inspired by this process, uses interview, conversation, reflection, and land-based practices to help uncover colonial structures within the disciplines themselves, working toward decolonial practices. While in Canada, our focus for Disrupting has been on decolonization, in the US context the focus has been on anti-racism (Middendorf et al. this issue). These are of course related projects, but located in the imperatives of our specific contexts. We imagine that more globally, Disrupting the Disciplines might respond to specific issues that are local and pressing. The approach is meant to surface issues and injustices that lie beneath the surface of everyday assumptions in our lives and work. The conversation started at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada, with Roberta Lexier and Lee Easton (2017) responding to a keynote on Decoding the Disciplines in 2016 by David Pace at the SoTL Symposium in Banff, Canada. Soon we were joined by Michelle Yeo and Indigenous scholar Gabrielle Weasel Head (Lindstrom), and our work began to go public (Easton et al. 2019). Our Collective at the time of writing includes Michelle Yeo, Gabrielle Weasel Head, and Lee Easton (all of Mount Royal University), Robin Attas (University of Manitoba), Brianne Collins (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology), and Joan Middendorf (Indiana University Bloomington), one of the originators of Decoding the Disciplines. This has been a challenging and rewarding journey without a final destination, but it is a journey with a purposeful direction: toward reconciliation, toward a more racially just society, and toward post-secondary institutions more welcoming and less hierarchical for both students and those that work there. We would like to begin by asking you, our readers, to consider some difficult questions. What is it that makes you uncomfortable in your universities and colleges? What makes you uncomfortable in your own practice? Despite strategic plans that prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion, despite commitments to Indigenization and decolonization, where do we all fall short? What is holding you, and all of us, back from making change? It is asking these sorts of questions that have brought this Disrupting Collective together. In the pages of this special issue, we will take you with us on parts of our journey, as different members of our group give voice as individuals and in different combinations to their own experience, as well as theorization and analysis of this inquiry. What we have learned is that to take the first step is to first look inside ourselves, to confront our own limitations, to begin to disrupt, unsettle, ask hard questions, and imagine something new. We recognize that many disciplines and institutions are grappling with these questions, but also that many are not. We hope to provide a “way in” for everyone to engage with the questions, to take the first step, whatever that looks like. Gabrielle Weasel Head continues to draw our attention to the possibilities inherent in an ethical space, which Willie Ermine describes as an “in-between space, relative to cultures… created by the recognition of the separate realities of histories, knowledge traditions, values, interests, and social, economic and political imperatives” (Ermine 2007, 20). What you will find in this issue is part educational development initiative, part research study, and part profound personal and collective journeying within and without. Some pieces represent the Disrupting Collective, while others are invited essays from our participants on their experiences of engaging with the process. Section 1 explores theories and methods for the Disrupting process, with pieces from all current members of the Disrupting Collective, individually and in combination. Authors explore different techniques and methods for Disrupting the Disciplines through Disrupting interviews and describe the diverse, yet transformative, results. In Section 2, some of the participants in the Disrupting process reflect on their own experiences and insights, both to their identities as teachers, but also as people. Section 3 continues with participant voices, but focuses on pedagogical disruptions as a result of the process. Finally, in Section 4, both participants and members of the Collective apply disruptive thinking to their own disciplines. Through this special issue, we hope to bring what we have found to be a powerful process within a relatively small group of people to a much wider audience. We have found a consistently open reception amongst audiences at conferences, but in the ephemeral nature of the conference experience have found these experiences somewhat fleeting. However, we feel that Disrupting the Disciplines, with our first publication half a decade ago in 2019 (Lee et al.), has now expanded and deepened enough to bring to a much bigger community. It is this desire which prompts our engagement here. In the following pages, we present a series of unique voices, that will at times speak individually, while at other times will be multi-vocal and rich. Occasionally you will notice the voices even seem to conflict with one another. Like any community, we are not all the same. We find strength in our diversity and in our varying perspectives. In all cases, we have tried to truthfully position ourselves—where we come from, and where we connect to this work. We also attempt to connect the theoretical with the practical, and the personal to both of these, providing a multi-faceted perspective on what Disrupting is and might be. The Disrupting Collective would like to thank all of the contributors to this issue, in particular, the participants in the Disrupting interviews and communities of practice who were willing to generously share their experiences. We would also like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Brianne Collins, who not only contributed to the article on Disrupting and educational development but also assisted in preparing final pieces for submission. In creating this special issue, our hope is to produce more connections and to inspire others to begin or continue on your own journey with courage. We hope to provide some guideposts and signs to help you, but we know that each must find their own path. We look forward to meeting up with you along the way.

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