Externality and materiality as themes in the history of the human sciences

Sinding-Larsen, Henrik

doi:10.1590/s1984-02922008000100006

Cited by 1 publication

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References 3 publications

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“…In this respect, the notion of enchronic time is useful in tackling an apparent dichotomy that has been created in the literature between discursive and embodied knowledge (see Zlatev 2007;Sinding-Larsen 2008). A result of this state of affairs in current anthropological scholarship has been the downplaying of the role of communication in processes of learning.…”

Section: Conversational Enskilmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociality of Enskilment

Gowlland

2018

Ethnos

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How do skills accrue? Bourdieu used the image of sedimentation to describe the accruing of habitus in the body, an image borrowed from Merleau-Ponty (Csordas 1993, 62-64; Herzfeld 2004, 37) that implies incrementation and historicity. In the same way, in activity theory, an activity contains the sediments of past activities (Engeström 1993). Grasseni (2004, 45) uses this same image of sedimentation to speak more specifically about skills, in her case 'skilled vision' (c.f. Knappett 2011). Clearly, it takes time to acquire skills; anthropologists have described the apparently endless repetitiveness of tasks and procedures that are part of an apprenticeship (e.g. Wacquant 2005; Gowlland 2012), procedures that are at first awkward and eventually become second nature. But what kind of time is this? What is the quality of the time of enskilment? A motif that appears in the literature on enskilment is that skills do not develop linearly, there is a shift in the quality of one's engagement in a skilled practice (e.g. Ingold 2000, 406-19; Marchand 2007; O'Connor 2006). At one moment it feels awkward, and then it becomes natural; we practice over and over the same routines, and suddenly things click into place, and we 'get it'. The unfolding time of enskilment is not linear, at moments it accelerates and at other moments it seems to drag on, mirrored by the boredom one might feel during endless repetitive practice. This unfolding, non-linear, time of enskilment is not only of a skill becoming engrained, accrued, in our muscles and minds, it is also unfolding social time, time spent not necessarily alone, or necessarily not always alone. Practice in a workshop involves solitary practice, but also interaction with more experienced practitioners, with peers and those in a more novice position. This is not only the time of instruction and explicit directives, but the time of interruptions, conversations, exchanges of jokes and gossip, or visits of peers from other workshops. For Lave and Wenger (1991), becoming proficient is part and parcel of developing an identity as a practitioner. Trevor Marchand (2008) has in the same way noted how the knowledge gained by an apprentice is only in part made up of skills and procedural knowledge-it is also about the shaping of worldviews, and the carving of a social position within a community of practitioners.

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Section: Conversational Enskilmentmentioning

confidence: 99%