scholarly journals Co-production of knowledge in transdisciplinary communities of practice: Experiences from food governance in South Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Adelle ◽  
Tristan Görgens ◽  
Florian Kroll ◽  
Bruno Losch
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
Food Governance ◽  
Cohesive Group

Abstract Communities of Practice are sites of social learning for the co-production of knowledge. Building on recent literature on Transdisciplinary Communities of Practice, this article reflects on the experiences of an emergent ‘Food Governance Community of Practice’ in South Africa that brings together multiple stakeholders to co-produce knowledge to inform local food policy and governance. Our results show the following lessons for managers and participants engaged in establishing similar ‘third spaces’ for knowledge co-production: 1) make inevitable power asymmetries explicit; 2) the identity of the group should not be built on a particular normative position but emerge from discursive processes and 3) create a balance between supporting peripheral learning and maintaining the specialist cutting edge discussions needed for co-production. Furthermore, the most beneficial legacy of a Community of Practice may not be the outputs in terms of the co-produced knowledge but the development of a cohesive group of stakeholders with a new shared way of knowing.

Sharing Knowledge, Building Knowledge: The Journal as a Community of Practice

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 283-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ponton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Mental Health Counseling ◽  
Geographic Proximity ◽  
Health Counseling ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Counseling Profession

Communities of practice have long been recognized as a vehicle for building and sharing knowledge and skills. With advances in technology, communities of practice are not limited by geographic proximity but now extend globally. This article describes how the Journal of Mental Health Counseling is a community of practice and suggests new uses of technology to enhance its impact on the mental health counseling profession.

scholarly journals Fostering communities of practice for improved food democracy: Experiences and learning from South Africa

ua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camilla Adelle ◽  
Florian Kroll ◽  
Bruno Losch ◽  
Tristan Görgens
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Food Democracy

scholarly journals Household Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in Rural South Africa: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1917
Author(s):  
Sandile Mthethwa ◽  
Edilegnaw Wale
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Food Policy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Rural Household ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Household Vulnerability ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Vulnerable Households

Using a nationally representative dataset from rural areas in South Africa, the study examines vulnerability to food insecurity using the Vulnerability as Expected Poverty framework. The dataset used was large and comprehensive to develop robust profiles of vulnerable households. This is executed employing the sustainable livelihoods framework. The findings show that human and financial capital plays a critical role in making rural households resilient from vulnerability to food insecurity. The failure of natural resources to support agricultural livelihoods emerged as an important factor for rural household vulnerability to food insecurity. Gender-based imbalances still prevail, explaining most of the rural household vulnerability to food insecurity. Female-dominated households still endure most of the prevailing vulnerabilities to food insecurity, and this is even worse for households headed by younger females. Policies, strategies, and institutions in South Africa have not been able to address household vulnerability to food insecurity. The study identified Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal as the most vulnerable provinces where food policy has to be a top priority agenda.

scholarly journals A Critical Review of the Use of Wenger's Community of Practice (CoP) Theoretical Framework in Online and Blended Learning Research, 2000-2014

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sedef Uzuner Smith ◽  
Suzanne Hayes ◽  
Peter Shea
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Blended Learning ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Online Teaching ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Online Teaching And Learning ◽  
Integrative Research

After presenting a brief overview of the key elements that underpin Etienne Wenger’s communities of practice (CoP) theoretical framework, one of the most widely cited and influential conceptions of social learning, this paper reviews extant empirical work grounded in this framework to investigate online/blended learning in higher education and in professional development. The review is based on integrative research approaches, using quantitative and qualitative analysis, and includes CoP oriented research articles published between 2000 and 2014. Findings are presented under three questions: Which research studies within the online/blended learning literature made central use of the CoP framework? Among those studies identified, which ones established strong linkages between the CoP framework and their findings? Within this last group of identified studies, what do the patterns in their use of the CoP framework suggest as opportunities for future research in online teaching and learning?

scholarly journals Understanding values of sanitation users: examining preferences and behaviors for sanitation systems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zakiya A. Seymour ◽  
Eugene Cloete ◽  
Margaret McCurdy ◽  
Mira Olson ◽  
Joseph Hughes
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
User Preference ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Technical Design ◽  
Technology Design ◽  
Design Attributes ◽  
User Acceptability ◽  
Sanitation Systems

Abstract Sanitation policy and development has undergone a paradigm shift away from supply-driven toward behavioral-based demand-driven approaches. This shift to increase sanitation demand requires multiple stakeholders with varying degrees of interest, knowledge, and capacity. Currently, the design of appropriate sanitation technology disconnects user preference integration from sanitation technology design, resulting in fewer sanitation technologies being adopted and used. This research examines how preferences for specific attributes of appropriate sanitation technologies and implementation arrangements influence their adoption and usage. Data collected included interviews of 1,002 sanitation users living in a peri-urban area of South Africa; the surveyed respondents were asked about their existing sanitation technology, their preferences for various sanitation technology design attributes, as well as their perspectives on current and preferred sanitation implementation arrangements. The data revealed that user acceptability of appropriate sanitation technology is influenced by the adoption classification of the users. Statistically significant motives and barriers to sanitation usage showed a differentiation between users who share private sanitation from those who use communal sanitation facilities. The user acceptability of appropriate sanitation systems is dependent on the technical design attributes of sanitation. The development of utility functions detailed the significance of seven technical design attributes and determined their respective priorities.

scholarly journals Intersectionality and the social meanings of variation: Class, ethnicity, and social practice

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 629-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Kirkham
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings

AbstractThis article examines how the social meanings of phonetic variation in a British adolescent community are influenced by a complex relationship between ethnicity, social class, and social practice. I focus on the realisation of the happy vowel in Sheffield English, which is reported to be a lax variant [ε̈] amongst working-class speakers but is undergoing change towards a tense variant [i] amongst middle-class speakers. I analyse the acoustic realisation of this vowel across four female communities of practice in a multiethnic secondary school and find that the variable's community-wide associations of social class are projected onto the ethnographic category of school orientation, which I suggest is a more local interpretation of class relations. Ethnographic evidence and discourse analysis reveal that local meanings of the happy vowel vary further within distinctive community of practice styles, which is the result of how ethnicity and social class intersect in structuring local social practices. (Intersectionality, indexicality, social meaning, identity, ethnicity, social class)*

What's so improper about fractions? Prescriptivism and language socialization at Math Corps

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN CHRISOMALIS
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
Language Socialization ◽  
Linguistic Anthropology ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Education Community ◽  
American Students

AbstractMathematical prescriptivism is a language ideology found in school mathematics that uses a discourse of rationality to proscribe language forms perceived as illogical or inefficient. The present study is based on a three-year ethnographic investigation of Math Corps, a community of practice in Detroit, Michigan, in which prescriptive language in the classroom is used both to highlight beneficial algorithms and to build social solidarity. Although motivated by the analogy with English orthographic reform, prescriptivism at Math Corps avoids potentially harmful criticism of community members of the sort often experienced by African American students. A playful linguistic frame, the prescriptive melodrama, highlights valued prescriptions, thereby enculturating students into the locally preferred register, the ‘Math Corps way’, which encompasses social, moral, linguistic, and mathematical practices and norms. A sociolinguistic and anthropological perspective on prescriptivism within communities of practice highlights positive alternatives to the universalizing prescriptions found in other English contexts. (Prescriptivism, language ideology, mathematics education, community of practice, Math Corps, linguistic anthropology, language socialization)*

Building an Infrastructure to Support the Use of Government Administrative Data for Program Performance and Social Science Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 675 (1) ◽  
pp. 240-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Lane
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Intellectual Engagement

This article provides an overview of the elements necessary to build a sustainable research data infrastructure. I argue that it needs the financial and intellectual engagement of a community of practice. Most attention has been paid to researchers and policy-makers, but a third group—government programmatic agencies—must be a focal point since they act as both data producers and as policy implementers. I also discuss possible business models that are both consistent with serving the needs of multiple stakeholders and that are not completely dependent on the largesse of the public purse.

Facilitator Toolkit for Building and Sustaining Virtual Communities of Practice

2011 ◽  
pp. 202-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Kimball ◽  
Amy Ladd
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Work Training ◽  
Virtual Communities Of Practice ◽  
Over Time

The boundaries of a Community of Practice (CoP) have changed significantly because of changes in organizations and the nature of the work they do. Organizations have become more distributed across geography and across industries. Relationships between people inside an organization and those previously considered outside (customers, suppliers, managers of collaborating organizations, other stakeholders) are becoming more important. In addition, organizations have discovered the value of collaborative work due to the new emphasis on Knowledge Management—harvesting the learning and the experience of members of the organization so that it is available to the whole organization. This chapter offers a practical toolkit of best practices, tips and examples from the authors’ work training leaders to launch and sustain a virtual CoP, including tips for chartering the community, defining roles, and creating the culture that will sustain the community over time.

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