What a wonderful extract. I am taken on a ride to learn how learning shapes character. How interactions shape identity.
Developing a practice requires the formation of a community whose members can engage with one another and thus acknowledge each other as participants. Practice entails the negotiation of ways of being a person in that context. The formation of a community of practice is also the negotiation of identities.
· Identity as negotiated experience.
· Identity as community membership.
· Identity as learning trajectory.
· Identity as nexus of multimembership.
· Identity as a relation between the local and the global
Trajectory
Identity is not some primordial core of personality that already exists. Nor is it something we acquire at some point in the same way that, at a certain age, we grow a set of permanent teeth. our identity is something we constantly renegotiate during the course of our lives.
· Peripheral trajectories some trajectories never lead to full participation.
· Inbound trajectories. Newcomers are joining the community with the prospect of becoming full participants in its practice
· Insider trajectories. The formation of an identity does not end with full membership. The evolution of the practice continues
· Boundary trajectories. Some trajectories find their value in spanning boundaries and linking communities of practice. Sustaining an identity across boundaries is one of the most delicate
· Outbound trajectories. how a form of participation enables what comes next.
Learning as identity
The temporal dimension of identity is critical. We are always simultaneously dealing with specific situations, participating in the histories of certain practices, and involved in becoming certain persons.
A sense of trajectory gives us ways of sorting out what matters and what does not, what contributes to our identity and what remains marginal.
Learning events and forms of participation are thus defined by the current engagement they afford, as well as by their location on a trajectory.
Paradigmatic trajectories
More experienced peers are not merely a source of information about processing claims; they also represent the history of the practice as a way of life.
Exposure to this field of paradigmatic trajectories is likely to be the most influential factor shaping the learning of newcomers.
a community of practice is a field of possible trajectories and thus the proposal of an identity. Community of practice is a history collapsed into a present that invites engagement.
new trajectories do not necessarily align themselves with paradigmatic ones. Newcomers must find their own unique identities; newcomers also provide new models for different ways of participating.
Generational Encounters
Different generations bring different perspectives to their encounter because their identities are invested in different moments of that history.
· With less past, there is less history to take into consideration.
· With less future, there is less urgency to reconsider history.
While newcomers are forging their own identities, they do not necessarily want to emphasize discontinuity more than continuity. Their very fragility and their efforts to include some of that history in their own identity may push them toward seeking continuity.
old-timers have an investment in their practice, yet they do not necessarily seek continuity; They might thus welcome the new potentials afforded by new generations who are less hostage to the past
In summary, the temporal notion of trajectory characterizes identity as:
1. a work in progress
2. shaped by efforts – both individual and collective – to create a coherence through time that threads together successive forms of participation in the definition of a person
3. incorporating the past and the future in the experience of the present
4. negotiated with respect to paradigmatic trajectories
5. invested in histories of practice and in generational politics.
Nexus of Multimembership
we all belong to many communities of practice: some past, some current; some as full members, some in more peripheral ways. Some may be central to our identities while others are more incidental.
As a consequence, the very notion of identity entails
1. an experience of multimembership
2. the work of reconciliation necessary to maintain one identity across boundaries
Identity as Multimembership
Our membership in any community of practice is only a part of our identity. We belong to many communities of practice. Because our identities are not something we turn on and off, our various forms of participation are not merely sequences in time. We interweave with our exchanges of work-related information continually reflect our participation in other practices.
Our various forms of participation delineate pieces of a puzzle we put together rather than sharp boundaries between disconnected parts of ourselves.
· we engage in different practices in each of the communities of practice to which we belong.
· our various forms of participation, no matter how distinct, can interact, influence each other, and require coordination
The specific trajectories do not merge, neither does it decompose our identity into distinct trajectories in each community.
In a nexus, multiple trajectories become part of each other, whether they clash or reinforce each other.
Identity as reconciliation
Being one person requires some work to reconcile our different forms of membership.
1. different ways of engaging in practice may reflect different forms of individuality
2. different forms of accountability may call for different responses to the same circumstances
3. elements of one repertoire may be quite inappropriate in another community.
It requires the construction of an identity that can include these different meanings and forms of participation into one nexus. the process of reconciling different forms of membership is deeper than just discrete choices or beliefs.
The work of reconciliation may be the most significant challenge faced by learners who move from one community of practice to another. Learners must often deal with conflicting forms of individuality and competence as defined in different communities.
· Not necessarily harmonious / not done once and for all / may involve ongoing tensions
I want to suggest that proceeding with life – with actions and interactions – entails finding ways to make our various forms of membership coexist, whether the process of reconciliation leads to successful resolutions or is a constant struggle
the maintenance of an identity across boundaries requires work and, moreover, that the work of integrating our various forms of participation is not just a secondary process.
the core of what it means to be a person
Social bridges and Private selves
Multimembership is the living experience of boundaries.
In weaving multiple trajectories together, our experience of multimembership replays in our identities the texture of the landscape of practice.
· But this replay is not a passive reflection
· the work of reconciliation is an active, creative process.
Through the creation of the person, it is constantly creating bridges – or at least potential bridges – across the landscape of practice.
the work of reconciliation can easily remain invisible as it is not be perceived as part of the enterprise of any community of practice.
Even though each element of the nexus may belong to a community, the nexus itself may not.