Hi Sara,
That article became Etienne's dissertation, available from University
Microfilms. He got his Ph.D in 1990, I believe, from the Information and
Computer Science Department at the University of California, Irvine. His
latest book, Communities of Practice, covers some of the same territory.
The methods question is a difficult one, as communities of practice/social
worlds are not confined to sites. I think Howard Becker's Art Worlds
(Calfornia, 1982) provides a good model, and his Tricks of the Trade
provides some sound methodological advice in general.
Leigh
>Dear all,
>I'm not too enthralled with the term "lurker" as there's something illicit
>about it to me. I've remained at the periphery, but I consider myself very
>active on this list. Anyway, I've been following various conversations for
>about two years, sometimes drawn in, sometimes not for a wide variety of
>reasons, which i've mentioned before, and have a lot to do with lack of
>facility with theory and concepts, shyness, etc.
>
>Right now I'm in the middle of fieldwork for my dissertation, trying to
>identify a community of practice at my site, which has created somewhat of a
>paradox. I'm hoping that someone out there can provide some guidance. It
>seems to me that in some settings-- places such as families, or a
>neighborhood
>community center -- the communities of practice are so highly embedded that
>they're hard to distinguish (if this construct is the appropriate one to use
>at all -- I'm trying to determine that right now). It's not like, in a
>reified sense, communities of practice really exist, but it's the theoretical
>practice (mine) using the theoretical framework (socio-historical
>cognition --
>particularly the work of Lave and Wenger) that has to articulate it and carve
>it out. I know this, but the methodological dilemma is how to go about it.
>So far I have not come across any methodology about this in the literature.
>One article I'd like to get my hands on is Wenger's 1990 monograph " Toward a
>theory of cultural transparency: elements of a social discourse of the
>visible
>and the invisible." I think this may provide some direction. If anyone
>knows
>where I can get this article, has any other thoughts on methodology, I'd
>greatly appreciate it!
>Sara Hill
>
>
> >===== Original Message From xmca@weber.ucsd.edu =====
> >Hi Elisa, Maria and others to follow!
> >
> >Welcome to this somewhat idiosyncratic network. I suspect your difficulties
> >are more due to the fact that this never-ending conversation has been
> >running for so long that we sometimes forget that new arrivals haven't
> >heard all that went before, than to your mastery of Internet English.
> >
> >In the olden days when Mike had more writing time to spend on the list he
> >used to allot a great deal of it to telling the community to feel free to
> >ask questions, naive or not, to share newborn ideas on research and theory
> >for feedback, and on eliciting contributions=messages from as many
> >participants as possible. He has also always been one of the most honest
> >Profs about showing his own spots of ignorance that I know (and now I can
> >see Mike blushing over there on the other side of the world).
> >
> >So, Elisa, it is also not too late to come back to your questions about
> >Bakhtin and Vygotsky. Just let us hope that enough of the participants who
> >have also been exploring that connection have writing time available within
> >the next few days when you do: it is a "fact of life" on a mailinglist with
> >as much traffic as the XMCA that after half a week or so an electronic
> >"letter" will have become covered by all the virtual scraps of paper
> >arriving after it. And sometimes time just isn't there for us.
> >
> >regards
> >Eva
>
>Vanderbilt University &
>Partnership for After School Education
>New York, N.Y.
______________________________________________
Susan Leigh Star, Professor
Department of Communication
9500 Gilman Drive
University of California at San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0503
lstar@ucsd.edu http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lstar/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 01 2000 - 01:03:00 PST