In theory, communities of practice sound wonderful. And most of the time they are, until someone does something that the other member's of the group disagree with. I have been in a community of practice since I was ten years old. I belonged in a culture and religion that everyone took seriously. We did everything together, everyone was invited to everyone's celebrations and birthday's, everyone hung around each other, and everyone followed the rules and traditions that were set for us by our elder's. The problem with this was that we were no longer living in the time of our great grandparents and we are no longer living in the old country that they came from. The ways in which our culture was trying to raise us was not practical to our current situation and life. When anyone would do something that was deemed "inappropriate" by our community they were pretty much shunned, talked about, and considered a disgrace.
Communities of practice sometimes hinder people from pursuing other dreams, keep people from true happiness, force people into doing something they don't want to, and sometimes can even brainwash people. And when someone gets exiled from a community that they grew up in because they made choices to better their lives and be happy, then they go from somewhere to belong to complete rejection. A community of practice has a lot of power to impact someone's self esteem and self worth both in positive and negative ways. I'm not sure if I am saying if they are wrong or right, but that maybe they have way too much power over a person's life. Religion especially, has a very powerful way of alienating the human race from each other just so they can conform to the community of practice they were born into.
All of the above symbols mean something. Who is to say what is wrong and what is right? If you chose to believe in one over the other, do you get the right to feel superior to everyone else? If you chose to respect all of these symbols and what they represent, do you lose your membership to your current community of practice?
You do a great job of exploring some of the complexities of communities of practice, especially the idea of "belonging" and "self-worth" (part of identity). The thing about CoPs is that they are a description of how people learn in social settings (and all learning is social in some form or another) and how people get shaped (form identities in social settings. Sometime the CoP has a positive effect, sometimes a negative effect, sometimes you feel as if you belong and it is right for you but you always have the freedom to leave if you don't want to function as part of that community (not saying that's easy!). Communities of practice is a Theory of learning; you can contrast it to views of individual learning where people believe that if learn something, you study it or someone lectures at you, etc. and then it just goes into your head -- nothing very social about that theory. This is a more up-to-date view. Soooo..with your cultural example, nothing right or wrong -- it is just a functioning CoP where people interact, learn together, etc. Some people stay, some go, but for those who remain, the social practices continue.
ReplyDeleteI think you do a very good job of talking about the effects of community of practice and how it has an effect and also how it has a role in forming our life. I really agree with the part when you said that "Communities of practice sometimes hinder people from pursuing other dreams, keep people from true happiness, force people into doing something they don't want to, and sometimes can even brainwash people". I totally agree 100%, some communities of practices do have a big influence on how people life their lifes
ReplyDeleteJehona, you made excellent points in terms of why communitites of practices can be deemed a negative aspect. I honestly never thought of the negative affects that it can have on a person's identity. There is no right way to determine whose religion or COP is the best. However, I think that whether one realizes it or not they are biased to what they know and believe. I think it's silly to loose respect in your CoP if you choose to explore other options of beliefs. My question to you is where were you born and raised? And what examples have you broken in terms of your CoP?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to what aspects your elders hold in terms of values, it would be interesting to compare that to my own CoP. I believe that you have a very strong beliefs and that is wonderful. I especially like this statement, "Communities of practice sometimes hinder people from pursuing other dreams, keep people from true happiness, force people into doing something they don't want to, and sometimes can even brainwash people." I know that the Catholic Church especially tends to brainwash people and only accept one view of life.