Craft Knowledge Research Articles

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Social Structure of Irrelevance

Reviews 673 reconnecting and healing this fragmented population. In sum, this very readable and timely case study is relevant to a variety of audiences with interests in contemporary cultural and national identity-formation pro- cesses and issues for which conventional the- oretical approaches are inadequate or irrelevant. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Social Structure of Irrelevance, by Eviatar Zerubavel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 199 pp. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780199366613. J ACK K ATZ University of California-Los Angeles jackkatz@soc.ucla.edu Books by Eviatar Zerubavel are almost impossible to review because they achieve perfectly what they attempt. And yet they must be reviewed, because what they attempt is consistently scintillating. The challenge is to connect Zeruvabel’s work to what most of the rest of us do. Again and again the reader is reminded of Simmel, who was sui generis and yet was quintessen- tially a sociologist. Simmel called his work a sociology of ‘‘forms,’’ Zerubavel calls what he does ‘‘cognitive sociology’’; and while both labels fit, neither instructs how to bridge the gains in knowledge they pro- vide, which are delivered at a universal level, to the vast majority of sociological studies, which are of people, or relationships, located in time and space. With Hidden in Plain Sight: The Social Struc- ture of Irrelevance, a volume that can be read as a decade-delayed companion to The Ele- phant in the Room, Zerubavel is exploring and demonstrating the duality of fore- ground and background that constitutes vir- tually all moments of social life. At times he backs away from universalizing, but I think that, with a few exceptions, he concedes too much limitation to what he has found: his contribution to social ontology is espe- cially useful. The text, which has an endnote tying almost every sentence to someone else’s related insight, is organized to grasp the seemingly infinite number of previously segregated ways that academic researchers, philosophers, musicians, painters, game players—seemingly everyone who ever lived—have noted that an experience, whether understood as occurring within social life, psychologically (as a moment of perception or cognition), aesthetically (as craft knowledge), or physiologically (rods and cones in vision), has a ‘‘hidden’’ aspect, background, or periphery on or within which the foreground or main focal phe- nomenon is constructed. To convey the flavor, here are some more or less randomly selected tidbits. You can if you wish attend to the rhythm of your breathing, but usually you dis-attend to it in order to attend to something else. If you want to present your work as clearly artistic, you represent the spaces between the things that people attend to, like the shapes between buildings in the New York City skyline, invit- ing viewers to awaken to what they have always but never seen. Sometimes the back- up singers get attention, but not usually, even though the overall effect depends cru- cially on them. If you want to survive as a potential prey or be a well-nourished pred- ator, you had better stick to a landscape that blurs the visual boundaries of your body in color and form. Having lived a good part of my life around conversation analysts, I tend to recognize, as they do all the time, how peo- ple are unwittingly led to a background (i.e., not said to be noticed as such) image by drawing out a metaphor from the fore- ground of a just-prior utterance. My all- time favorite is a federal prosecutor in Miami announcing to the news media that, for his office, the conviction of major drug dealers was ‘‘a real shot in the arm.’’ Now, as to those exceptions. Some forms of meditation, OK. Maybe some religious, aes- thetic, and erotic experiences, which Zeru- bavel, in a stimulating way, just touches on. (There we go again). But near the end he concedes too much, suggesting that we’re just socialized to regard some things as in the foreground, others in the background: ‘‘we do not really have to choose between selective attention and open awareness, since they actually complement each other.’’ Well, no. Notwithstanding the rare moments in which one is tempted to drop actively shap- ing behavior and be taken to a consciousness that merges background and foreground, we do have to choose. Analytically, foreground Contemporary Sociology 45, 5 Downloaded from csx.sagepub.com by guest on September 7, 2016

The mobility of memory: space/knowledge dynamics in rural potting workshops in Limpopo Province, South Africa

ABSTRACTThe relocation of ceramic craft activities to workshops creates new arenas for knowledge transmission and the acquisition of skills. But it may also cause tensions, due to the breakage or severance of ties to the spaces previously associated with craft learning. Exploring the interplay between the practice and knowledge of ceramic technology on the one hand and the spaces in which technology unfolds on the other, this article focuses on craft knowledge on the move in the Mopani District of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Workshop collectives bring together and potentially fuse the various knowledges and skills of Tsonga-, Venda- and Sotho-speaking women. However, changes of workspace also imply moving from potters’ respective homestead spaces to open and shared spaces, occasionally furnished and equipped for industrial-like large-scale production. Significantly, various projects supporting local ceramic craftspeople have encouraged and initially funded the production of new forms of clay objects, entailing outside supplies of special clays and new equipment requiring electricity (e.g. potters’ wheels and kilns). Our study explores the range of problem-solving strategies employed after outside support and clay supply has ceased. Some collectives manage well while others struggle. Commonly, while returning to local clay sources for material is straightforward, it is more difficult to resume craftwork in homestead spaces where knowledge/skills once were acquired. A key aspect is ancestors’ continued roles in human/nonhuman interaction. Centring on space/knowledge tension in relation to craft mobility and always-unfolding processes of entangling/disentangling, our discussion has implications for how we understand the term material memory and relate it to material/immaterial heritage.

Videos, pairs, and peers: What connects theory and practice in teacher education?

This article reports on the use of videos to address a long-standing problem in preparation for many professions: how to help novices bridge the gap between abstract bodies of professional knowledge and the “craft knowledge” of practitioners. The study focuses on the use of videos of experienced high school teachers to help pre-service teachers to deepen their understanding of key pedagogical strategies in social studies and to apply what they learn in a student teaching seminar to their classroom practice. The findings demonstrate the kinds of scaffolding needed to encourage pre-service teachers to challenge and deepen their initial conceptions.

Book Review: Seeing like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars

Book Review: Seeing like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars

Necessary, Not Sufficient

The craft of making stained glass all but disappeared from the northern Netherlands in the long eighteenth century, but craft knowledge continued to circulate in texts and rare attempts at revival. This paper studies the role of artisans, natural historians and apothecaries and their use of texts in attempts to maintain and revive the knowledge of and techniques for the production of stained glass in the northern Netherlands between 1650 and 1821. I argue that their efforts contributed to the preservation of existing stained glass, and raised awareness about the cultural and historical value of stained glass and the knowledge and skills required to produce it. Although much tacit, practical knowledge was lost, basic technical knowledge circulated in a small number of texts. Combined with preserved stained glass, these texts served as the basis for reconstructive experiments that would lead to a revival of the art in the nineteenth century.

Crafting the microworld: how Robert Hooke constructed knowledge about small things

This paper investigates the way in which Robert Hooke constructed his microscopical observations. His Micrographia is justifiably famous for its detailed engravings, which communicated Hooke's observations of tiny nature to his readers, but less attention has been paid to how he went about making the observations themselves. In this paper I explore the relationship between the materiality of his instrument and the epistemic images he produced. Behind the pictures lies an array of hidden materials, and the craft knowledge it took to manipulate them. By investigating the often counter-theoretical and conflicting practices of his ingenious microscope use, I demonstrate the way in which Hooke crafted the microworld for his readers, giving insight into how early modern microscopy was understood by its practitioners and audience.

Seeing Like a Rover. How Robots, Teams and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars - by Janet Vertesi

Seeing Like a Rover. How Robots, Teams and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars - by Janet Vertesi

"All the Lovely Ladies" and "Celestarium"

These poems are part of a larger manuscript that explores the poet’s lifelong engagement with knitting and sewing—and with the usually woman-centered communities that form around these crafts. The poems also respond to the cultural treatment of craft knowledge as frivolous or simple, highlighting the highly technical nature of such work and the mathematical, structural, and geometric knowledge required to successfully execute textile crafts. Densely referential, these poems invite the reader to play within their sounds and associations, making her own leaps and connections as she reads.

Research on the protection of haiyan hall earthen stereobate relic site at yuanmingyuan park

Abstract. The Haiyan Hall Earthen Relic Site at Yuanmingyuan Park is an earthen relic with significant historical value and special structure stress. Starting with the historical research of Haiyan Hall Earthen Relic Site at Yuanmingyuan Ruins, this paper offers an in-depth knowledge of the original site construction craft and proposes a protection scheme aiming at addressing the current problems at the relic site and achieving its continuity and readability by combining modern technology and abiding by the principles of relics protection.

Brewing Science: Technology and Print, 1700–1880 by James Sumner (review)

Reviewed by: Brewing Science: Technology and Print, 1700–1880 by James Sumner Richard W. Unger (bio) Brewing Science: Technology and Print, 1700–1880. By James Sumner. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013. Pp. xviii+ 295. $99. By the closing years of the nineteenth century, in the wake of Louis Pasteur’s and then Emil Hansen’s work on yeast, science was securely established in the making of beer. James Sumner, in this revised and expanded doctoral dissertation, writes the prehistory of that success. His sources are the various British books on how to make beer, largely by unheralded authors, along with newspaper reports and advertisements as well as articles written in trade and scientific journals, where relevant pieces began to appear around 1850. His close reading makes it possible to trace a long-term shift from reliance on experience to experiment. Eighteenth-century authors typically were either veterans of breweries or writers of a philosophical bent with an inclination to universalize the exception. Each group tended to snipe at the other, with brewers said to lack learning and promoters of chemistry said not to know how breweries worked. The former were suspect since they were unlikely to reveal trade secrets and lose a competitive edge. Logically they would reveal part of what they knew, with more available for a fee through personal consultation or another printed work. The philosophers were suspect because some promoted the use of a measuring instrument in which they had a financial interest. Credibility was a constant problem for all parties. The barriers between the two groups broke down starting in the last years of the eighteenth century as some authors tried to bridge the gap. From the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of institutions where beer research took place and the publication of findings in journals rather than in treatises gave brewers easy and virtually costless ways to learn about the considerable advances in science. The second half of the nineteenth century may have seen the easiest access in history to improvements in technology, and brewing was no exception. In particular, as there was a consistent concern about the adulteration of food and beer, by the 1840s scientists were able to gain entry to the industry because they offered tests to establish purity. Whereas in the eighteenth century scientists were distrusted as possible quacks or nostrum-mongers who might taint beer, by 1880 they were guarantors of quality and durability. [End Page 535] By systematically examining specific works and specific authors along with their often eventful careers and influence over time, Sumner is able to weave an evolutionary tale with the conflict of philosophy and craft knowledge as the central focus. Those who qualify for praise, like John Richardson, were men able to address a broad readership and persuade practical men to become more philosophically attuned. Concentration on a single type of source creates a highly coherent and consistent study. It does, however, tend to exclude the larger context, most notably the commercial fortunes of the brewing industry. For example, while there is some concern for general developments in chemistry, the surprising fact that virtually all substantive advances in brewing science were imported from the Continent gets no consideration. On the other hand, Sumner describes the presence of laboratories in breweries at Burton on Trent at least twenty years before Pasteur’s work was published, including their low profile. Brewers were afraid people would think the work in those small rooms was directed at finding ways to adulterate the product. That beer was something people consumed and that it was produced from various organic compounds certainly made it harder for scientists to contribute to advances in production methods at that time, another avenue of investigation opened in the book but not pursued. The book’s layout is careful, with descriptions of the directions to be taken and frequent headings for sections. While that choice of format makes for simpler reading, space is absorbed which might have served to expand the scope of the work. Separating the works on beer published before 1880 from the others listed would have made the bibliography more useful. Brewing is an ideal subject for historical examination, as its history combines...

A collaboration of school administrators and a university faculty to advance school administrator practices using appreciative inquiry

Purpose – An appreciative inquiry (AI) collaborative study with 11 school administrators in a highly diverse suburban school district sought to understand if observing and sharing successful school practices/events in a whole group setting led to change in their perceptions, attitudes, and administrative practice. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The study took place over a ten-week period with a group of self-selected (voluntary participation) school administrative participants. Findings – There were two findings: the AI focus of inquiry on successful practices/events shapes school administrator perceptions, attitudes, and application of craft knowledge to practice; and the school administrators’ sharing of successful practices/events in a whole group setting generated new forms of practice during the ten-week study. Originality/value – The findings suggest that reflection and integration of successful practices/events are a source of craft knowledge advancing changes in school administrative practice.

Making space for active learning: the art and practice of teaching

Summary Making Space for Active Learning: The Art and Practice of Teaching will inspire new and veteran teachers to “make space” for children’s interests, for teaching as relational and intellectual work, and for new insights and ideas. The authors introduce the Prospect Center’s Descriptive Review of Practice, a collaborative inquiry process that provides an opportunity for teachers to examine their practice and gain new perspectives from other participants. The contributors to this volume respond to each child's modes of thinking as they develop curricula or find ''wiggle room'' in the curriculum they are given. By demonstrating how it is possible to pursue careful knowledge of craft, this book offers ways of teaching that allow for continuing growth and change. Making Space features:

Mapping of a curriculum renewal journey: Lessons learned

A curriculum is described as an expression of educational ideas in practice. [1] It is a living document which should be adaptable to a changing environment. When faced with specific contextual challenges that required curriculum renewal, we took a phronetic approach. The process was predominantly based on craft knowledge and relied in most part on the insightfulness of staff. The curriculum renewal provided a unique opportunity to evaluate both the content and the mode of delivery. In this edition of AJHPE we share the valuable lessons learned along the journey of curriculum renewal. We started with the end in mind by defining the profile of the Stellenbosch University physiotherapy graduate (Table 1).

Conference Review

Abstract Making Futures iii – Interfaces between Craft Knowledge and Design: New Opportunities for Social Innovation and Sustainable Practice Mount Edgcumbe, Plymouth, Devon, UK, 26–27 September 2013

What should a physical education teacher know? An analysis of learning outcomes for future physical education teachers in Sweden

Background: Research indicates that physical education teacher education (PETE) has only limited impact on how physical education (PE) is taught in schools. In this paper, our starting point is that the difficulties of challenging the dominating subject traditions in PE could be due to difficulties of challenging certain epistemological assumptions recurring in significant PETE subject matter and didactics courses.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise how knowledge is expressed in learning outcomes formulated in curriculum documents at PETE institutions in Sweden and to discuss the potential educational consequences of the epistemological assumptions underlying the analysed expressions of knowledge.Setting and participants: This paper offers possible explanations for the difficulties of influencing subject traditions in PE through analysing learning outcomes formulated in PETE curriculum documents. The analysis is based on 224 learning outcomes collected from a total of 18 course syllabi, spread at 6 PETE institutions in Sweden.Research design, data collection and analysis: The documents have been collected through contact by e-mail with representatives for each institution. Through the analysis different themes in the material have been identified and clustered together. Inspired by Fenstermacher's ideas about teacher knowledge as propositional knowledge and performance knowledge, our ambition is to discuss the potential educational consequences of the epistemological assumptions underpinning the analysed learning outcomes.Findings: In the collected learning outcomes, the following themes were identified: teaching PE, interpreting curriculum documents, physical movement skills, science, social health, pedagogy, critical inquiry, and research methods. In most of the identified themes, the learning outcomes represent both subject matter knowledge and general teacher knowledge and are also formulated with an integrated perspective on so-called performance knowledge and propositional knowledge. However, particularly in the themes science and physical movement skills, two very influential themes, the learning outcomes are limited to subject matter knowledge and the concept of knowledge in these themes is also limited and unilateral in relation to ideas of different forms of teacher knowledge.Conclusions: We argue that a decontextualisation of knowledge, in this paper identified through dissolving science from its use in practice and through detaching physical movement skills from other conceptual foundations, contributes to the reproduction of subject traditions that render PE teachers incapable of critically reflecting over their practice, for instance how different groups of students benefit or suffer from the teaching of certain content. Drawing on the work of Tinning, we offer an explanation as to how teacher knowledge in the themes science and physical movement skills, emanating from behaviouristic and craft knowledge orientations, is formulated.

Dimensões do coletivo na atividade de trabalho Dos motoboys

Políticas públicas brasileiras procuram reduzir a gravidade do quadro de acidentes de trabalho dos motoboys, priorizando dimensões individuais da pilotagem. Seus resultados são limitados por não contemplarem satisfatoriamente dimensões coletivas do trabalho e seus efeitos na profissão. Ademais, há carência de pesquisas neste campo. Para colaborar neste movimento de compreender↔transformar, objetivou-se verificar como o coletivo profissional vem se desenvolvendo no meio profissional dos motoboys. Orientada pela Ergologia, na pesquisa mobilizou-se vertentes clínicas do trabalho: Psicodinâmica do Trabalho e Clínica da Atividade. Observou-se a existência de coletivo profissional em formação, verificada por meio de saberes práticos, sistemas defensivos, linguagem profissional, valores e regras de ofício, que começam a ser elaborados e partilhados por esses trabalhadores. Porém, verificou-se que individualismo e baixa solidariedade entre pares vêm fragilizando esse coletivo, reduzindo sua capacidade de resposta às condições degradantes de trabalho. Entende-se incontornável seu fortalecimento no caminho do exercício profissional mais seguro.

Social Organisation of Knowledge Production in Software Work: A Qualitative Study of Two Different Firms in Chennai, India

Based on a qualitative study, the present article examines the social organisation of knowledge production in the software work in India. The two sample firms located in Chennai city, India representing contrasting images about nature of software work were studied: a branch of a large domestic software services company—low-end programming/Fordist production model; and an Indian subsidy of a multinational software product firm—high-end software product development/flexible production model. The social organisation of software production in the two software firms are hierarchically organised, but demonstrated differential flexibility to meet the emerging market or client demands, and exhibited autonomy at the employees’ level to use craft and technological knowledge through organisational procedures and routines, mediated through the project managers. It appears that prolonged engagement with the same technologies or projects works as impediment to the learning process or new knowledge production. The self-interest of the programmers motivates to engage in new knowledge production despite being directed by the organisations. The accumulated knowledge is kept within the organisations by retaining the employees through periodic pecuniary and non-pecuniary rewards, and possibilities of career leaps through technological breakthroughs. The external agents are brought in for new knowledge acquisition either through informal learning by doing or through upgradation of technological skills through training.

Craft and Narrative in DIY Instructions

This article examines tutorials from the Web site, Instructables.com, to highlight the rhetorical possibilities of including personal narratives in instructions. The narratives in these tutorials offer detailed accounts of their authors’ experiences when constructing their projects, thereby functioning as accounts of the authors’ craft knowledge. Pitched to amateur hobbyists, rather than the professional audiences of many forms of conventional technical communication, these tutorials offer new ways of teaching craft knowledge and techniques.

IJU this issue

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), technology is defined as a complex of the making, modification, usage and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a pre-existing solution or a problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output relation or perform a specific function. Whatever the definition, technology based on the very latest information is much easier to obtain and utilize in most developing countries in this day and era than it was decades ago. In the present issue of International Journal of Urology, Sasaki et al. (Tokyo, Japan) addressed the potential use of seed implantation for the treatment of local recurrence/failure after primary 125-iodine brachytherapy for localized prostate cancer. Urologic surgeons are often hesitant to recommend primary radiotherapy, especially to younger patients with localized prostate cancer, mainly because of the uncertainty of treatment of choice in the event of local failure. Variable options have previously been reported, including salvage radical prostatectomy, salvage seed implantation, cryoablation, high-intensity focused ultrasound, endocrine therapy and even active surveillance. Despite the long history of practice and patient population with this condition, there seems to be no high-level evidence recommendations available yet. The other issue in this field is how to avoid excessive irradiation to protect surrounding organs/tissues from disaster. A conversion formula and calculation software of total irradiation have been developed by some researchers in the USA. Such technologies will be widely available soon once proven useful, and could benefit our patients as a whole. Sawada et al. (Kanazawa, Japan) reported the cumulative risk of developing prostate cancer in men with low levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels ≤2.0 ng/mL. The cumulative probabilities of developing prostate cancer at 4 years in men with baseline PSA of 0.0–1.0 and 1.1–2.0 ng/mL were 0.05% and 1.10%, respectively. They concluded that the cumulative probabilities of increased PSA and developing prostate cancer significantly increase with higher baseline PSA ranges. This finding is compatible with other studies in Western countries; however, it raises again the question about “detection versus significance”. Nakagawa et al. recently reported on incidental cancer found in cystoprostatectomy specimens for advanced bladder carcinoma.1 The beauty of this study is the measurement of PSA before surgery. They found 15% of “significant cancer” in those with PSA <4.0 ng/mL (45/297), 9.6% with PSA <1.0 ng/mL, 16.4% for PSA 1–2 ng/mL and 22.4% for 2–4 ng/mL. These two investigations do not address exactly the same issue. However, the contrast provides food for thought. We all need to revisit the concept of “clinical significance”. Clinically significant cancer does not necessarily indicate a killer. Similar to the field of breast cancer, we all need to further cultivate the field of molecular biology to characterize this malignancy. With the aid of more advanced technology worldwide, some day we will be much better equipped to reach the ultimate goal of nursing the sick, not the sickness. None declared.

Reading as a Writer in Australia and China: Adapting the Workshop

The Western writing craft workshop has been dominated by a narrow conception of ‘reading as a writer.’ An overview of Creative Writing as a discipline in Australia and China suggests that a broader conception of ‘reading as a writer’ would enrich teaching in both the Anglophone countries and Asia while it improves expression and enhances cultural understanding. A comparison of courses that focus on nonfiction at Flinders University in Australia and Sun Yat-sen University in China demonstrates how reading that takes into account a variety of subject aims and outcomes and reflects diverse cultural experiences can benefit native speakers, those who come from non-English speaking backgrounds and second-language learners. Sharing strategies to facilitate language learning and craft knowledge will improve expression and broaden cultural perspectives. In addition, the teaching of nonfiction, which must be pursued at a critical, craft and ethical level, highlights the social responsibility not only of professional writers who are studied but of apprentice writers as they work towards critical and creative competence.