This chapter will begin by outlining the challenges I face as a teacher-researcher in formulating a research design to investigate the difficulties, perspectives, acknowledgement, and rights of ELT textbook writers involved in the production process. I set out to find the disputes that occur between the big publishing houses and the Colombian ELT textbook writers’ struggles of the self, recognition, rights, payment, and other aspects to be considered hidden in the arena of ELT material production in the field of ELT Education. In this respect, I present the ELT writer as a subject who in the publishing process can be subjected to the market needs and requirements or in which I can be able to find other types of disputes. It is important to mention that from a Foucauldian take on the subject, the ELT writer as a subject is not completely subjected because they can find subtle forms of resistance, such as teacher subject-writers who can provide a range of identity options for learners who use textbooks without the need to trust what big publishing industries present as the valid knowledge required to teach English.
I find that the ELT writer’s subjectivity could be relevant in terms of the extent to which they can accept or reject what is included in the textbooks. Subjection can take place when the writer wants to ascribe identities and claim identities, depending on whether the writer as a social actor is active or passive in the process. Regardless of whether they acknowledge it or not, ELT textbook writers are influenced by the conditions they face during the production process.