Uma abordagem etnográfica em comunidades de prática

Abstract

The starting point of this research is a lifelong personal question: how does spontaneous learning occurs in workplaces? To this question follows: Is it possible to assimilate the tacit knowledge sphere in workplaces practices? Aiming to answer those initial questions, the ethnographical approach is presented as a possibility to capture the embedded and non-articulated knowledge among multiple people acting together in workplaces settings. The ethnographical research done on a 11 months field research at a chemical plant located in the area of Campinas, in Brazil, became of historical reference, both as a pioneer ethnographical research done on entrepreneurial context and as a first approach to the nature and presence of communities of practice in workplaces. Theoretical background of this research is based on a literature that emphasizes the situational and experiential nature of learning as proposed by Dewey and other learning in practice authors. The community of practice perspective is based on the early 90´s work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger developed at the Institute of Research on Learning in Palo Alto, California. The social and negotiated character of tacit and implicit knowledge of spontaneous learning in action is explored through two problem-situations related to the productive processes occurred during the ethnographical research. The situated character of learning is presented through the participation on a one-month in company course structured to prepare a group of 20 recently hired chemical operators which we attended as regular student. By placing the anthropologist as a research subject and apprentice of a dated and situated productive activity, the ethnographical approach identifies the social organization and the access structure of apprenticeship on the production process, aiming to reach a relational point of view of social determinants that improve or inhibits learning processes in workplaces. Key words: Ethnography, communities of practice, social learning, tacit knowledge