Sewing Empowerment: Examining Multiple Identity Shifts as a Mexican Immigrant Woman Develops Expertise in a Sewing Cooperative Community of Practice

Abstract

This article demonstrates how one woman's identity changed as she was empowered through her participation in a sewing cooperative community of practice. A community of practice framework allows examination of participation in ongoing negotiated interactions in which people construct expert and novice identities as they work together. Identity, as we define it here, is not static, but a constantly shifting set of identities, or aspects of identity, that are constructed in ongoing interaction. What this study adds to such an understanding of identity is that particular aspects of identity are also not static but show shifts over time as people negotiate place and gain the social capital associated with skills, expertise, and competencies. In the case of the woman, Diana, considered here, the multiple aspects of identity under negotiation shift as she becomes a more experienced, expert member of the sewing cooperative, and these shifts are illuminated in discourse.