“Identity in Practice”
What is “identity in practice”?
Identity in practice is part of a larger concept of Communities of Practice, a term coined by Etienne Wenger
Communities of Practice are a thing we will be looking at in depth later in the semester, but, for now, you should understand that they are a framework for understanding how we learn.
In these communities, we learn lots of things, one of the major ones being how we form our identities.
Defining Terms
Identity
What do we mean when we say identity?
In this instance, we’re using the traditional idea of identity.
According to Google, identity is defined as “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.”
Practice
When we talk about practice in everyday terms, we usually refer to the repetitive nature of something to get better (like practicing an instrument or skill).
However, in terms of Communities of Practice, we mean actually doing things.
This is in opposition to theory where we merely discuss the thing.
For example, we can discuss how to do something like applying makeup (theory) and we can also do that (practice).
There are five characterizations that Wenger lists in the beginning of the chapter for identity.
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.
You don’t need to know these terms as in-depth as Wenger goes, but you should have a cursory understanding of the ideas.
Plus there’s a quiz after this, so…
Let’s go through each of them.
Identity as negotiated experience
Wenger argues that this means “[w]e define who we are by the ways we experience our selves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify our selves” (149).
What does this mean?
Wenger is arguing that we are always negotiating what it means to be who we are.
We are not 100% independent in deciding parts of our selves.
We don’t define what it means to be a student, something you all are, but we might negotiate and push boundaries and change what that looks like.
Reification
Reification is usually defined as making abstract ideas concrete (or real).
While this is certainly one part of it, in this context, reifying an identity is the idea of association. When I mentioned a student, what came to mind?
When you search Google for images of a student, here’s what you get:
What makes these people students?
Is it the books? The laptops? The smiles? The raised hands? The mask? The way they are dressed?
All of these things reify what it means to be a student in our society.
Identity as community membership
Wenger defines this by arguing that “[w]e define who we are by the familiar and unfamiliar” (149).
In short, this means that we exist in communities and that those communities help us understand who we are.
This also goes along with the idea that we are going to realize our potential identities in circumstances in which we understand the expectations and less so when we are not as familiar with them.
Identity as learning trajectory
Trajectories refer to the path that something is on.
Learning trajectories refer to the path you want to take in a given community.
Wenger says that identity is a learning trajectory as “[w]e define who we are by where we have been and where we are going” (149).
He also adds that there are five kinds of trajectories we might have:
Peripheral- those on the periphery that never quite make it into the community
Inbound- those that start on the outside but end up in
Insider- those that start inside and move around a community
Boundary- those that bridge more than one community
Outbound- those that start in the community but are on the way out
Other Colleges
Examples of trajectory types
Community
Outbound
Inbound
Insider
Peripheral
Other Community
Boundary
CSUSB
Students
Parents
Professors
Freshmen
Graduates
Trajectory Labels
CSUSB Equivalents
Identity as nexus of multimembership
Multimembership refers to the idea that you belong to more than one community at a time.
Nexus is the point at which all those communities meet- YOU!
Wenger explains this by saying “[w]e define who we are by ways we reconcile our various forms of membership into one identity” (149).
Feminist
Professor
D&D Player
Gamer
Cat Mom
Me!
Nexus
Identity as a relation between the local and the global
Wenger says, “[w]e define who we are by negotiating local ways of belonging to broader constellations and of broader styles and discourses” (149).
Here, Wenger is arguing that your identity involves both how you see what it means to be a certain identity in your local lived life, but also that is connected to how people in the global context also live that same identity.
If we use the example of being a student again,
Locally, you know how to be a student and do that in your everyday life.
For CSUSB, you might become familiar with Blackboard and call yourself a ‘Yote.
Globally, there are students all over the world. We can recognize students from all over even if their everyday experiences are different from yours.
Therefore, being a student is something that you negotiate between what you live everyday and what the broader community of students creates that identity as.
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