March 2008 Archives

Last night I was interrupting my husband’s swing on Tiger Woods ’07 by reading aloud passages from Wenger, annotated by loud “That makes total sense!” and “Holy crap I feel smart!”  He thought I was nuts and was annoyed that his score was rising but it was so fun for me.  My geekdome was shining through and it felt comfortable; like a warm sweater on a fall day.  Pieces of me were finally coming together and my continued struggles were making sense.  I have always sort of felt like I was an imposter, someone having to piece together who I was when everyone else had a script but Wenger said that identity was not an object but rather a “constant becoming” (154).  Identity is not scripted, is not something we pick up one day and carry with us but rather a piece of a very complicated puzzle that we put together throughout the entirety of life.  Identity is, a “lived experience of participation” (151).  Each community of practice we enter changes us as we change it.  As newcomers into a community of practice we seek to understand not only the norms and reifications of the community but also how our identity is intertwined to the future of the practice.  When we are full members of a community or rather “insiders” our identity evolves with changes in the practice and when we leave a community we open ourselves up to knew possible identities while carrying with us the self we have become through our participation in the community.  Each step we take, each trajectory, frees us to explore who we are becoming.  I imagine my future self calling me forward, reassuring me that the perceived mistakes I make are needed steps in my life; propelling me toward who I am.  Wenger has given me a framework of reassurance; I am not pretending at life just because I seek additional pieces.  My search does not mean I am inadequate but rather that I am simply becoming.