Undisciplining service design: Towards a grammar of possibility

Despite its ambitions to transform service systems, service design has been critiqued for reproducing the status quo and normalizing others into dominant social expectations. To move away from the circulation of hegemonic structures, the service design discipline needs to be challenged. Drawing on queer theory, this paper explores how service design can be undisciplined to create a grammar of possibility for making service systems otherwise. Based on experiences from an experimental seven-week service design research and education collaboration with hospital-based mental health services in Norway, this research presents a queer framework that highlights the failings that ensue when we play with, or dis/order, traditional service design. This research offers an opening for expansive ways of untraining, undoing and forgetting that attempt to resist mastery in service design. To encourage continued experimentation, the paper provides playful and provocative prompts for undisciplining service design in practice, education and research.