Learning as a performative social process

Abstract

This chapter shows that learning is a performative social practice in which elements of mimesis, ritual, repetition and subjectivity all play an essential role. Mimetic learning is primarily understood as performative learning, in which the staging of physical, sensuous and aesthetic dimensions is important. The mimetic and the performative sides converge in the importance of rituals and ritualization for learning. Mimetic learning is productive; it is related to the body, and it establishes a connection between the individual and the world as well as other persons; it creates practical knowledge, which is what makes it constitutive of social, artistic and practical action. The ability to act socially is acquired mimetically in cultural learning processes. This has been shown by a large amount of research conducted during the last few years. The culturally variable human abilities of play, of the exchange of gifts and of ritual action are developed by means of mimetic processes.