Paper short abstract:

Situated learning is presented as a handy concept to rethink the role of tradition in archaeology. It is argued that a concern with learning provides an avenue to think through the relationship between people, social structures, knowledge, material, cultural change and stability.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I argue that theories about cultural tradition and transmission are hollow, if we do not pay more attention to the central role played by processes of learning in the propagation of cultural traits, structures and forms. If discussed at all in archaeology, learning has usually been approached within evolutionary archaeology frameworks, in which case it is commonly considered as a fairly static, uni-directional transmission of cultural information, governed by natural selection and genetic drift.

I would like to advance a somewhat different conceptualisation of learning processes, by drawing on the work of Etienne Wenger (1999; Lave and Wenger 1991) and his concept of situated learning. Inspired by crucial work in practice theory, in particular Pierre Bourdieu , Wenger argues that learning is situated within and takes place amongst the members of particular communities of practice. He describes learning as a progression of individuals from the periphery of a practice toward its centre as their experience of the communities' enterprise increases and their social relations with other members of the community are augmented.

Communities of practice illustrate how particular practices, knowledge, norms and ideas are propagated within definable social constructs, without losing the essential focus on agency and practice. This focus on learning avoids falling back onto loaded and static concepts such as 'culture' and provides a useful avenue to rethink the idea of traditions in archaeology.