Communities Of Practice

I was unable to attend this weeks lecture, so instead i have read the required readings and i am putting my knowledge of what i have learnt from these readings into what i believe what a community of practice is.

'The basic argument made by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger is that communities of practice are everywhere and that we are generally involved in a number of them' and it didn't take me a long time to realise how many communities of practice i actually belong to. One community of practice i have been part of was when i was 17. I was part of a the town's council Soul Band. I was a singer, and the other members played various instruments. As Wenger states - 'Members of a community are informally bound by what they do together' and that was exactly what we did. We met up and created music together.

Wenger believes that a community of practice is about a 'joint enterprise' that is 'understood and continually renegotiated by its members'. Initially to be part of the soul band you have to have a talent with your instrument. For me, it was singing. Everybody in the band attended the classes to create music with a soul sound and to enjoy this experience. Wenger also states that is functions by 'the relationships of mutual engagement that binds members together into a social entity'. The mutual engagement is not only that it is mutual that all of the members are meeting to create music but they are engaging with each because they have to engage together to create the right sound. Wenger also stated that for a capability to be produced there must be a 'shared repertoire of communal resources that members have developed over time'. When every band member initially started we all had knowledge of how to use our instruments, however over time we all learnt together how to play and perform songs, also, we all learnt how to interact with each other to create these sounds. In addition, we also learnt each others strengths and weaknesses and we all communicated with each other so we could find the best practise to resolve them.

Wenger states that a 'Community of practice develop around things that matter to people.' The soul band practices that i attend fits into that category because we attended the practices because soul and music mattered to us. Which 'as a result, these practices reflected the members' own understanding of what is important'. (Wenger pg 2) Althouh there isn't a hierarchy set out within this community of practice because everybody gets together and we all create the music ourselves, however in some cases there are some members of the group that have a better knowledge in some fields than others so there is a small sense of power athough it isn't a big issue. With this, it then allows all members to have a mutual respect for each other and we all end up being educated as well as educating others when we attend.