[Xmca-l] Re: Research on refugees/immigrants/migrants and Legitimate Peripheral Participation?

Fri Jun 28 06:21:31 PDT 2019

Hi, Alfredo et al -

The question that Lave and Wenger were asking in their 1991 book was “How does a community pass on the knowledge that it has created to the next generation, given that we are not talking about school learning?”  (That was clumsily expressed, but it’s the point.) How does the midwife pass on midwifery to the next generation, given that there’s not midwife training program? Same with the tailors in the marketplace; the members of AA, etc. To answer this question, L&W look at descriptions of communities where the practice survives (midwifery, AA, tailoring, quartermastering) and where it does not (the butcher department in a grocery store). From what they see, they propose guidelines. These propose what a community has to be doing in order for the knowledge that the community has collectively created to make the leap across generations (which means that the practice, and thus the community itself will survive).  LPP is what they call the kind of participation that they identify as making this possible. The guidelines are that the participants in the community have to feel that they are legitimately there and have a right to learn how to become “experts” in the craft (that would mean a right to ask questions, to demand full explanations, to be listened to, to feel that their learning is one of the purposes of their participation); that their participation involves doing real work that contributes to the real productivity of the community (not “make-work,” as in, in being given a fruitless assignment or just something ot keep them busy); and that the path from novice (these are L&W’s terms) to expert or insider is transparent and known to all (no secrets, no hidden passwords to getting more knowledge — equal access).  

In other words if you want to use Lave and Wenger to understand what is going on with the children being held at the border, the answer is no — their LPP theory won’t help.  Why not? Because how are you going to identify the community that generates the practice that is going to get passed along, or not, to the next generation? You’ve got three concepts there that don’t fit the situation.  

A typical place where the L&W approach is useful is when you’re looking at an institution or organization that is having a hard time finding someone younger to take over — organizations that age out under the same leader and then expire becuase they haven’t been building the next generation. (Re-Gen should come to mind, here, as an example of an attempt to build the next generation.)

Using Engestrom’s activity theory unit of analysis could help clarify what’s going on, however, and at least make it possible to plan the research.

H

helenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>
helena.worthen1

> On Jun 28, 2019, at 7:03 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no> wrote:
> 
> Hi Helena, all, 
> 
> yes, I can see how CHAT can be relevant to fighting oppression and de-humanisation. I was wondering more about the peripheral participation metaphor in Lave and Wenger. I guess my question has to do with the challenge of thinking of participation in a context in which all opportunities to pursue the satisfaction of your basic human needs are shutdown and taken away from you through violence. Andy seems to imply in his response that this is still some form of participation. Not sure about that. I wonder if the notion of participation holds when agency no longer is a possibility. But of course, I was reducing the question to the very narrow case of children being held in inhumane conditions. I thought that this reduction to the extreme may be useful for thinking the limits of our theoretical premises, an exercise that may be particularly relevant in the context of existential crisis in which we find ourselves; as a means to imagine how far we can go with our current ideas and what sort of action/thinking needs to be done in a context in which we may be pushed to the limit, right before the point of no longer being. 
> 
> Sorry Greg for having taken your initial request for a walk... Thanks for having opening the other thread to more properly address your initial question. 
> 
> Alfredo
> 
> 
> From: Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> Sent: 27 June 2019 15:13
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Cc: Alfredo Jornet Gil
> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Research on refugees/immigrants/migrants and Legitimate Peripheral Participation?
>  
> Alfredo — Try turning the question around: how does CHAT surface (make visible to the researcher) the activities that are taking place in a community of practice where people are fighting oppression and de-humanisation? What are these people doing to carry on the fight?
> 
> CHAT’s power to reveal conflict and contradiction comes into play here. 
> 
> This is an issue that kept rising and then sinking during  the consensus points discussion for Re-Gen.
> 
> 
> helenaworthen@gmail.com <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> helena.worthen1
> 
>> On Jun 27, 2019, at 7:18 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no <mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>> wrote:
>> 
>> Just to add, that the problem I'd like to learn more about is, how does a framework that takes apprenticeship and community as starting point help when the object of research is one that concerns oppression and dehumanisation? 
>> 
>> Alfredo
>> 
>> 
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no <mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>>
>> Sent: 27 June 2019 02:37
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Research on refugees/immigrants/migrants and Legitimate Peripheral Participation?
>>  
>> I cannot help with this, Greg, since I don't know of work specifically connecting the two. But if your student gets to write about that, I'd be very interested in reading her/his work.
>> 
>> A few days ago, I was listening Amy Goodman's interview with a lawyer who visited children detention centres in the US border. I literally cried as I was commuting to work listening to the horrendous inhumanity being described. 
>> 
>> (Interview here:) https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/6/24 <https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2019/6/24> 
>> 
>> Now, reading your question, I wondered, what is "legitimate participation" for a child in a detention center? What is the center and what the periphery in such a context? And for a Syrian refugee in a shelter in Turkey? Is there anything like a community of practice that belongs to being a refugee or immigrant?
>> 
>> Not that I am sceptical about or questioning the relevance of the approach to the issue. Just that I don't know how, would like to know. 
>> 
>> Best,
>> Alfredo
>> 
>> 
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
>> Sent: 26 June 2019 18:23
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Research on refugees/immigrants/migrants and Legitimate Peripheral Participation?
>>  
>> Just wondering if anyone out there could point me to research on refugees/immigrants/migrants and Legitimate Peripheral Participation (or otherwise connect the former with Lave and Wenger's communities of practice)?
>> 
>> (this is for a student of mine)
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 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://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu/> 
>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>

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