Submitted by Leah, Pei-Wei and Arjana
An interesting point raised by Wenger is that identity is not a category nor a personality trait and it is definitely not a self-image, but a combination of:
- how we perceive ourselves (this perception consists of what we think about ourselves and what we say about ourselves) and
- what others think and say about us.
Furthermore, identity is not only being but also doing. What we do in our everyday life, who we interact with, what roles we take on, how we participate in specific communities are all factors that shape our identity. All these interactions and activities build layers of our identity and as such, identity is not to be seen as a finished product that will be fully shaped by a certain point in time or after a required task is accomplished or after a desired goal has been achieved. Identity, according to Wenger, exists in the constant way of negotiating the self and it is a constant becoming.
We constantly engage in all kinds of different communities and in each of these communities our identity may be different. In some of them we participate infrequently or peripherally, while in others we contribute significantly to the community and fully participate in its activities. These variations of participation can, and often do, happen at the same time. The question that we raise here is if at that particular moment our identity consists of particular layers that are a constant at that particular time, why do we act differently in different communities? In other words, do we have multiple identities or are the voices we hear in our head our other selves? For example, if during the same semester a student attends two different classes in both of which she is a newcomer, it can easily happen that she becomes fully engaged in one, yet completely marginalized in another. Even though the layers of her identity are identical at the given time, does this difference in community participation occur because the voices in her head instill different amounts of self-confidence in her or the competency she develops in these two courses influence her identifies differently? Does that mean that despite our being, thinking and doing, our participation is dependent upon the willingness and openness of community members to allow us to shape the way of how we either participate or non-participate?
Wenger distinguishes between participation and non-participation, however, both are constituent parts of our identities. What’s more, these two types of participations closely interact with each other. These interactions can be peripheral or marginal. In the case of peripherality, he claims that some degree of non-participation is necessary as it will lead to participation, whereas in the case of marginality, full participation is prevented by non-participation. Does that always happen? Can marginality be transformed into participation and can peripherality eventually lead to the prevention of participation? Participation and non-participation are not just decided by our personal choices, argues Wenger, but depend on the trajectories of learning in a community, the demands of the multimembership as well as on the position of the community within broader institutions.
Multimembership is another important characteristic of our identity. We belong to different kinds of communities and may move from one to another in the course of our lives, and while doing so we bring along the knowledge we gained, the behaviors we learned or the experiences we acquired. However, sometimes these are not aligned with the demands or the rules of a new community and we need to find an identity that can reconcile all these differences. According to Wenger, reconciliation is a constant process and it requires a lot of work. Multimembership and the work of reconciliation are at the core of being a person, of belonging.
Three important modes of belonging, engagement, imagination and alignment, expand our identity through space and time in different ways. They are not mutually exclusive, they complement each other. Each of them is important for the formation of our identity and require work. Interestingly, Wenger describes the work of imagination as the ability to disengage and to look at our engagement from the outside in order to reinvent ourselves and the world around us. His definition of imagination refers to the process of “expanding our self by transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves”. Can we all do that? Is imagination a trait we are all born with, but some of us mute it (consciously or unconsciously,) have it stifled, or allow it to run wild? Sir Ken Robinson would certainly agree with it. Would you?
While Wenger suggests components of identity and their relationships in communities of practice, there are many questions we have regarding various elements found within the various descriptions and how the answers play out in this discussion. But, as we all know, our identities continuously develop and are shaped while participating in all kinds of communities of practice in our lives.
Brandon says
Identity is a notoriously tricky concept to pin down, and a lot of different people have put forward very different conceptions of it. One of the more interesting ones holds that identity is narrative, and nothing but (http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/4312/1/Sfard_-_ER_148-2_-_6_Mar_05.pdf). This concept is a rabbit hole, no need to dive down it for now. Suffice it to say, like CoP, I think identity is a something which is best dealt with as a conceptual lens for understanding something, rather than a concrete thing.
Are identity and self synonymous? Does one, or the other, or neither actually exist? These questions might be too philosophical to address disruptive technology in education. So, Wenger notwithstanding, how can identity help us come to grips with this topic?
Katie Bateman says
I find your conversation on imagination interesting. Especially in teaching things like science, where somethings are not readily observable to humans, even with special tools, the use of our imaginations are crucial to fill in the gaps that observation leaves behind. I don’t believe that we are born with any more or less imagination, but some of us are better able to connect that which our brains invent to areas of learning.
Isaac Jason Bretz says
One of the problems with viewing children, and their imagination, as victims of schooling, or some other hegemonic institution, is that it removes the individuality and humanity of the child, it makes the child a subject of pity and charity rather than power and creativity. Imagination is practices every day by feeling and belonging. Doesn’t social media afford this experience?
Zach Lonsinger says
“The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies.” Neil Gaiman also agrees that everyone is born with imagination. And nice shoutout to Sir Ken Robinson! As Katie said, I also find your conversation on imagination interesting, but for different reasons. Katie comes from a science background, which differs a bit from my communications background dealing with video production. I liked how you included Wegner’s definition of imagination:
“Wenger describes the work of imagination as the ability to disengage and to look at our engagement from the outside in order to reinvent ourselves and the world around us. His definition of imagination refers to the process of “expanding our self by transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves”. ”
I found this part of the reading to be the most interesting, probably because my identity relates to this the most. I immediately thought of examples of “out-of-body” experiences when Wegner talked about imagination; movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and more recently, If I Stay immediately came to mind. I continued to wrestle with Wegner’s definition of imagination and examples found in the media. Is this the same form of imagination? Or does it take another level of imagination to “transcend our time and space” and view our identities as someone else views them. Einstein was a big believer in imagination, even to the point that imagination is more important than knowledge. Is this true? His argument was that knowledge is limited and imagination is limitless. If this is true, then why is there not more of an emphasis on imagination in schools. How can we use technology to support, extend, and foster a student’s imagination through learning? Okay, I’m done saying the word imagination now.
Adam says
“In other words, do we have multiple identities or are the voices we hear in our head our other selves?”
I’ve always liked to think the voices I hear in my head are manifestations of our different CoPs. For example I might hear my Dad’s voice or my friend Joe’s voice in my head reacting to a situation. Each one offers something they would say and typifies their point of view on something. Dad represents what my family, a tight community in my case, would think about something while Joe represents how my friends from high school (again, a tight community) would react to something. I am a member of both communities and while both are important to me they represent two different sets of values, repertoire, and engagement.
Audrey Romano says
I think it’s really interesting how we ourselves interchange our various identities. Maybe for some of us, all of our identities across CoPs are derivative of one another. Like if I work in IT, then there’s a certain variety of things that people around us assume. For example, they might not be surprised that along with technology, I might also like video games, anime, comic books, or scifi/horror. Sometimes it comes as a surprise to me to meet a technologist who doesn’t have a smart phone (by choice). But I guess that ties into non-participation. How we choose to expose the multiple identities we may have across any of the communities is something we deal with regularly and probably don’t often think about. Like the example of when you might invite family, coworkers, and childhood friends to your wedding.
Dean says
“His definition of imagination refers to the process of ‘expanding our self by transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves’. Can we all do that? ”
I tend to think that imagination and creativity are closely related. Are they synonymous to each other? Not sure. But they do both spark in me this idea of “creation” and having the ability to imagine new things….to create something new, be it in the physical space and/or in the mental space.
I’ve heard many folks say that they don’t consider themselves creative, and they just end the conversation there. But I think it’s like any other thing that we can get really good at. The more it’s used, the more comfort is there, the more easily it is to tap into.
So, yes, I think we can increase our abilities in this area. There are many who believe this.
New topic….identity!
I’d like to especially comment on what Wenger says about one of the parts that forms our identity, which is – “what others think and say about us.”
Now when I think of identity, it’s always of my self, my own identity. I never really look out to others and say that is their identity. I do say things like this person may prefer this thing or that person has this quality or characteristic, etc. But I don’t often think of other people in terms of their identity. Because I truly don’t know who people are on the inside. I can only form an idea of who they are based on my perception of the interactions that I have with them and based on what I see them do. This leads me to think – Do others really form my identity? I don’t truly know what others think about me. Also I don’t think about what they think that I am about, so how does their thoughts (of me) form my identity? It’s a difficult one to grasp. Need help on this one….thanks!
Identity seems like a personal sense of self, sure shaped by interactions and experiences with others, but completely personal when considering one’s own identity.
Priscilla Taylor says
The line that stood out to me the most in this post was “All these interactions and activities build layers of our identity and as such, identity is not to be seen as a finished product that will be fully shaped by a certain point in time or after a required task is accomplished or after a desired goal has been achieved.” This makes me think about technology and education. A typical conversation is about whether or not someone identifies themselves as techie or not. Sometimes this becomes a fixed identity that one accepts. According to Wenger, what they fail to realize is that, their identity is fluid and can change. By changing their activities and interactions, they could begin to make changes toward reshaping their identity.
Michael Sean Banales says
I really enjoyed your thoughts on the relationship between Identity and CoP, especially with this idea of all the voices in my head representing different parts of self. I feel like I always have competing voices that represent the different aspects of my life, which I feel more and more it can be argued that the aspects I refer to are simply a variety of CoP. As Brandon mentioned, I feel like Identity is a difficult concept to completely define. Yet if we can’t define Identity, how is it we can study the interactions it has with a CoP? It feels like every step further we take, we have a harder time truly encapsulating everything we need to.
Koun says
I think we all have multiple (temporal) identities, and the each identity within us consciously and unconsciously reflect the voices of others interpreted by ourselves, not the direct voices. However, it seems there are certain identity which I feel more comfortable with or geared toward. It might be coming from my experience of living in the foreign country with different culture and language. I am aware that my identity shifting when I go back to home country during break, and it is very natural and I do not need to negotiate or put efforts to do that. Whereas, when I come back here, shifting from the one I had in my home country to the one hear. Ironically, it seems that you can see who you are, the core identity across the multiple identities within you more clearly when you are located in peripheral or marginalized status.