Spirit mediums of East Africa. Healers and fishermen of the Amazon River
Basin. Potters of the American Southwest. People contending with climate
change long ago. All share "knowledge in motion," a process of drawing
on experiences past and present while engaging in daily practice in
relation to contexts of time, place, and power.
In the last twenty-five years, scholars from a number of disciplines
have explored "situated learning," specifically investigating how
learning relates to social reproduction and daily life. In Knowledge in
Motion, contributors focus on learning through time and at a variety of
scales, particularly as they relate to power and politics, with
implications for emergent communities and constellations of practice.
This volume brings together archaeologists, historians, and cultural
anthropologists to examine communities engaged in a range of learning
practices around the globe, from Africa to the Americas. Contributors
draw on the growing interdisciplinary scholarship on situated learning
to explore those processes in relation to power and broader forces that
shape knowledge during times of turbulent change.
Enriching the diversity of regions and disciplines, Knowledge in
Motion focuses on how learning, knowledge transmission, and the
emergent qualities of communities and constellations of practice are
shaped by changing spheres of interaction or other unstable events and
influences. The contributions forge productive theories and
methodologies for exploring situated learning and its broad-ranging
outcomes.
