This is a follow up on the earlier discussion initiated by the analysis of the emotions that occur during my participation or lack thereof in the course online spaces and activities. Having compared the comfort zone (blog and my wiki) and a ‘danger’ zone (skype, discussion board, Second Life) – see my comment to entry seven - I have noticed that while entering the latter spaces I am trying to transfer my real life habits, which might prevent me from embracing the potential of the online diversity. Being a perfectionist that hurts a lot so I suffer greatly, caught in the fit of emotions as illustrated in the past post. It seems I need to change then, at least when it comes down to my online presence (at the moment I am not unhappy about my passivity in face-to-face contexts and besides the course focus is on the online).
The problems I experience while communicating and socialising online resulting from my persistence to be ‘real’ (superreal, one could say) could be likened to the threshold concept. Meyer and Land (2005) stipulate the existence of such ‘gateways’ in certain disciplines and give examples of entropy from physics or depreciation from accounting so I hope I am not violating their theory by trying to link it to something seemingly trivial and describe the experiences as transformative, integrative, irreversible and often troublesome. ‘Threshold’ can be imagined as a point, opening up a space where new understanding of the subject matter and, what is more, oneself might (or might not) be gained. This stage between not knowing and knowing, not understanding and understanding, this ‘the betwixt and between’ (Meyer & Land, 2005: 375-376) has been named by the two researchers a ‘liminal space’ (my attempt to visually grapple with the concept below).
So what might happen when you enter a liminal space?
| Liminality theory | My case (work in progress) |
| alter from one state to another | solitary > social inward > outward ego-centric > object-centric, where object is knowledge personal > communal non-participatory > sharing lurking > more active silent > participatory |
| acquire new knowledge | professional knowledge + knowledge of the world, others, myself |
| acquire a new status (within the community) | non-existent > recogniseable (as somebody contributing, sharing, reliable) |
| acquire a new identity (within the community) | as above |
However, the transition is often problematic and troubling and often involves ‘humbling’. This happens because in the process similarly to the snake skin the old identity gets shed (illustrated somewhat in my ‘autoethnography’ where I stripped myself in front of myself). The process does not happen overnight and there might be a great deal of going back and forth, representing the state of internal struggle and uncertainty, which, however, is pedagogically, intellectually and ontologically fertile. Meyer and Land (2005) claim it might be impossible to achieve the new transformed state. Getting stuck in the liminal space might mean the incapability of overcoming epistemological obstacles but does not exclude ontological ferment. ‘Praxis of stuck places [which] might tolerate discrepancies, repetitions, hesitations, uncertainties, always beginning again’ and refuses ‘the privileging of containment over excess, thought over affect, structure over speed, linear causality over complexity, intention over aggregate capabilities’ (2005:379).
So, a liminal place is actually somewhere ‘nice’ to get stuck in. Meyer and Land describe it as less predictable and fluid. I see it as limitless silkiness and smoothness, yet perpetually pulsating and undulating, provoking things to happen. It’s about the process, the wander during which you reach out and branch out if need be in order to explore the unknown and the uncertain, the affective, the contextual and the local. While doing so, other threshold concepts might emerge, opening up more liminal spaces.
From http://www.eastonhome.co.uk/Photoshop/flag/silk.jpg
Keywords: IDEL11, liminality, stuckedness, threshold concept
Comments
> I am trying to transfer my real life habits, which might prevent me from embracing the potential of the online diversity<
I think this links also to conversations about bring the real world with us into the virtual – assuming the same social practices come with us, for instance.
I think you’re making good use of threshold concepts here – particularly in relation to the transformative nature of them. For you to move beyond this liminal state, this stuckedness, would involve significant transformation in the way you are (or act as in Goffman’s performance, perhaps?) as a learner and are in relation to the learning community.
Love the video – I wonder if we can say learning=being? When are in a liminal state we suffer an ontological crisis.
I’ve been playing with an idea at the moment of:
*learning=change (incremental or transformative in a Meyer & Land way, but either way any change is in some way a transformation);
*change = risk (because change means moving beyond the limits of the world as you know it);
*risk requires trust (for learning this could be trust in the reason for learning, trust in the learning environment, trust in the learning process, the tutors, peers, even the self-as-learner)
And I’m struck by a definition of the blank rune (Odin) in Norse mythology as ‘the empty handed leap of faith into the void’.
I wonder if stuckedness in this particular case is about a conceptual stuckedness or trusting enough to play at being (Sartre again!) and have that play help bridge the ontological gap?
I like that you are embracing the liminal as positive – it sounds quite tantalizing the way you describe it! Maybe that ties to the empty handed leap as well – in the nothingness we can fly. :)
To me learning definitely means being – sometimes I think I breathe, eat and drink learning, more than usual these days – or maybe it’s the other way round and it should be ‘being means learning’. In any case these two are inseparable in my view. And learning is not necessarily synonymous with acquiring a skill here, more to do with the process involving a great deal of thinking, musing, reflecting, mulling over, etc, simply being intellectually active. If we take such a definition of learning, I’m not sure if learning always leads to change. Land and Meyer stress that dealing with threshold concepts doesn’t always bring understanding, sometimes successful dealing might be about accepting them, ‘living purposefully with the anxiety’ (Barnett in Bayne 2008: 203) unless change means acceptance of such anxieties. This could be considered indeed risky because you somehow doom yourself to life in doubt (could cogito ergo sum be changed into dubito ergo sum?) – sweet torments of unknowing - and that, in turn, would require courage and trust. Whether it’s trust in yourself as a learner and/or learning process or trust in others, being it tutors or peers is another question, which I am increasingly being baffled and perplexed by to say the least (I’m actually torn between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, more about it in another post).
The blank rune has let me look at the issue from a slightly different and more nuanced perspective. Being a linguist, I couldn’t help playing around the words ‘leap’ and ‘jump’ a bit. I might be taking it too far, but it strikes me as quite interesting that when I think of a ‘jump’ I instantly envisage a ‘parachute jump’ or ‘a suicidal jump from a bridge’, something along the vertical axis and downwards whereas I associate ‘leap’ with something more horizontal and forward, thus not necessarily ending up in a disaster (see Klein’s Leap into the Void photomontage)! Your last remark about flying would also link to that.
Whether it is conceptual stuckedness or trusting enough (trusting what or whom specifically or trusting in general?) is an interesting question – the rune comes in handy again: in order to leap you have to relinquish control. In order to do so you need to trust that the unknowable (what is going to happen?) possesses creative powers to unblock potential in you. So the act of leaping is very constructive, potentially fertile, why not embrace it as a positive experience?