4 - Background knowledge in the foreground

Summary

Introduction:

The modern humanitarian community, given voice by Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross in 1863, constituted itself from its earliest days as a “community of practice.” This chapter examines the contemporary transformation of this community through practice, the unfolding of its life with the competency of practice at the epicenter of the change.

I treat practices, following Adler and Pouliot, as “competent performances” and “socially meaningful patterns of action.” A “community of practice is a configuration of a domain of knowledge that constitutes like-mindedness, a community of people that ‘creates the social fabric of learning,’ and a shared practice that embodies ‘the knowledge the community develops, shares, and maintains.’” In a strong statement of the understanding of practice, practice can be performed “correctly” or “incorrectly,” well or badly. Practice is competency.