Review_Author: Renee Hayes
Book_Author: Etienne Wenger
Book_Title: Communities of Practice
Date: 4/7/99
Time: 1:47:52 PM
Remote Name: 128.175.34.246
This book was very difficult for me to read and very frustrating, because during the whole reading experience I was getting the feeling that Wenger was trying to tell me something interesting, but I was not able to grasp it. This is a completely different feeling than I have experienced with other readings (not in this class, of course) where I just simply don't understand and don't really mind that, because I don't feel like I'm missing anything. With Wenger I felt like there was something there, but just so poorly communicated I could not get it.
Well, I began by reading the introductory chapters, which were not assigned to the class. These consisted of a description of Wenger "intellectual context"; and a couple of vignettes describing the life in claims processing. Both were very interesting to me, and made me think that Wenger was going to then connect the two throughout the rest of the book, that the whole book was going to be about how his theory described in the introduction was shaped by his ethnography with the claims processors, using lots of examples from the ethnography to illustrate his points. I expected this, but as you all know from reading the chapters you read this is not at all what happens.
Why was I so disappointed? Well, because my hopes were high after reading the beginning. I was fascinated with Wenger's theoretical framework, because he examines certain assumptions most of us have about learning in a new light and places them in a broader context. He says "For most of us, the concept of learning immediately conjures up images of classrooms, training sessions, teachers, textbooks, homework, and exercises...if we proceed without reflecting on our fundamental assumptions about the fundamental nature of learning, we run an increasing risk that our conceptions will have misleading ramifications." Well, I agree with this, it's like what they say now as a catch phrase in the business world "thinking outside the box;" it's not like the box is something new, but when we step back and look at it with a fresh perspective, it changes, shrinks from being the whole universe of possibility to well, just a box. That's one thing that Wenger does that I found valuable (at least in the introduction).
Then he describes his theoretical perspective more specifically in the introduction, and I'm still following along eagerly so far, because he makes a lot of sense to me. I am going to explain this in class, because it's important to understanding Wenger, but in summary he explains that he does not want to focus on social structure or individual experience solely, but that he feels the most interesting things in life happen at the intersection of social structures and individual experiences (here is where "learning as participation" fits in). He thinks that learning takes place in "communities of practice everywhere, everyday...." and gives examples of these (street gangs, garage bands, worldwide web discussion groups...). He says these things are not new, but we do not see tham as learning communities because we are prepared to see learning only in the little box where we are expecting to find learning.
At one point later in the book he writes that learning is always taking place, but it is not always the things that we are expecting or hoping for. So in school, somebody may be learning how to act like a burnout, how to sleep in class without being caught, etc. That's learning. Not good learning, neccessarily, but Wenger is careful to repeat throughout the book that learning is not always good, community is not always good (or bad), individual identity is not always good (or bad)...this reminded me of a true anthropologist. You are studying something (learning, community, etc.) and you need to be prepared to see all of it, not just the tiny concept of it that you are able to see from you own society's perpspective. There is the expression "we see the sky through a hollow reed" to describe the phenomenon that what we see is shaped (constrained) by our culture....and anthropolgists can help us see more, I think. That's what I was hoping from Wenger.
So we would not neccessarily see learning in the claims processing office...and Wenger was going to show us that, to open up the posssibilities. So When I read his two vignettes, I was already looking for things there, making the familiar strange, and expecting that Wenger would spend the rest of the book moving between his theory and the ethnography, showing me new things. But, alas, the whole middle of the book dissolved for me into vague definitions of things (with hardly any references to the ethnography at all...but with just enough good examples to illustrate his points that he kept reminding me that he could be interesting, if he wanted to be!). And the problem was not just that it was not interesting, but that it was not concrete enough to hold my attention. I felt the words swimming through my head without taking hold. Just an endless stream of vocabulary..."reification"..."participation"..."practice"...blah blah blah. And instead of sharing his work with us, sharing how his theories emerged from his experiences with Alinsu, he delivers his theories as edicts from above, with godlike certaintly and no particular concrete grounding. Well, it didn't work very well, for me.
Actually, I think now Wenger should go back and take each chapter and write a book. For example, look at page 53. He delivers a list of edicts. I can almost see the stone tablets these were written on...numbered 1 through 6, indented, and that's it. "Living meaningfully implies"...these 6 things. And there are things like for example number 2 "a world of both resistance and malleability." Did this just spring fully-formed out of the head of Wenger...his detailed vignettes in the beginning suggest not. So he could take this one statement and show how he came to see it from his ethnography at Alinsu...what does this look like? I bet he could do this.
Well, what we do not see in this book is context...two kinds, actually, that would provide meaning to what is otherwise just empty terminology for me. First, place the theory (the edicts) in context of the ethnography. Not only would it make sense in the context of the practice (as Wenger himself, ironically, might argue), but it would give me (the reader) the comforting sense that these ideas did indeed come from somewhere. And also there is another context that Wenger could provide, and that is the other theorists, because you get the sense that he is thinking of them when he writes...something like "well, I know you (Skinner, Hutchins, Piaget) would think this, but I think instead this other thing." You can see this more clearly in the introduction, where he specifically refers to other theorists (well, actually, more in the endnotes). His ideas are really just part of a conversation, but the frustrating thing is that we can't hear the other part of the conversation except sometimes when he conveniently locates the other part of the conversation buried deep in the back of the book in an endnote.
Here's what I want to say to Wenger. Overall, Wenger, your work is not done. This may be a good start, at least you have convinced me that you have something intriguing to show me...but now you have to show me.