[Xmca-l] Re: Refugee education and Communities of Practice?

[Huw Lloyd]

The usual advice is to refine the question. In terms of "what can help
refugees", there are an enormous potential number of factors. Almost
anything goes in being helpful, whereas "what constitutes an effective
program" (with a high rate of success) might enable some high level views
onto such a rich tapestry indicating various forms of coherence. From a
student's real interest, however, it may be that they simply want to know
more about a certain subject (the indication was cultural participation and
the propagation of values etc), which might actually be more directly
answered by studying the literature (potentially contradicting a course's
emphasis on field work by setting it up as a performance rather than as a
natural extension to the enquiry). I state this partially out of the
"solution-probleming" manner in which the task is cast, with an emphasis
upon CoP rather than on a question, but perhaps one could say participation
rather than a performance (depending upon the understandings that the
student brings).

If one takes localization as a factor, then you have the requirement for
assimilating all of the legislative requirements for running a restaurant
"above board". For this aspect, one can look at various ways in which these
are effectively adopted. Such as comparing a formal course upfront vs
ongoing support in working in a restaurant. Alternatively one can compare
the program with a traditional business school, with an eye to particular
community needs. Perhaps from a simple descriptive approach one can simply
interview participants about their experiences and then seek to make sense
of them -- I'm not sure you'd learn anything profound, but it might satisfy
the PhD. Perhaps you will get more seasoned advice concerning managing the
requirements for a PhD. Personally, the "PhD" I began has become
considerable in size, but then I have generally followed "knowledge in
depth" and the requirements for a PhD that I encountered were quite
superficial.

Huw



On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 at 16:51, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'm starting a new thread bc I failed to be adequately descriptive in the
> other thread and there are important conversations being had there that
> aren't quite relevant to my student's work. And yet I don't want to disrupt
> those conversations, hence a new thread.
>
> So to clarify the situation at hand for me, my student is a refugee from
> the Middle East who is here in the U.S. and has been working in the field
> of refugee education and is now conducting research in that field for his
> PhD. He is studying a multi-year program that trains refugees in
> entrepreneurship (specifically, to start their own restaurants here in the
> U.S.). His basic question is: What kinds of programs can help refugees to
> get settled in the U.S.?
>
> He is using CoP as a way of thinking about this specific task of
> restauranteur-ship. But he's also kicking around whether CoP could be
> useful for the task of moving to a new country/place and figuring out how
> things work in that country/place, and perhaps even whether CoP could be
> used to think about the task of becoming a citizen to a new country.
> Thinking about apprenticeship into restauranteur-ship using CoP seems
> fairly straightforward. But thinking about CoP in the second sense seems a
> little more complicated. What is the "community" of which one is becoming a
> part? Is a nation-state too large of a community to put CoP thinking to
> work? Or is it not sufficiently defined to be called a CoP? (and even as I
> am doubting this second use of CoP, I can't help but feel that
> restauranteur-ship in the U.S. cannot NOT be connected to the question of
> U.S. citizenship).
>
> The other thread is not unhelpful for these questions but they aren't what
> this student is "up to" in his research (and I generally prefer not to be
> too recalcitrant in my advising of students - and, more importantly, I am
> not his dissertation chair). I would add that CoP was an attempt to move
> away from previous more assimilationist frameworks, so it was a step
> towards being more critical. (and I'm happy to have this conversation merge
> into that one if that seems like what is necessary). But I will keep those
> suggestions in mind as a way of continually encouraging a more critical
> take on things.
>
> Hopefully the above provides a better sense of what I'm looking for (even
> if that might be problematic).
>
> -greg
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
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