Post 12

In “Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces,” Elizabeth Wardle quotes Sociologist Etienne Wenger’s theory of communities of practice. Wenger describes the three interrelated modes of belonging as engagement, imagination, and alignment. Engagement involves defining a common goal among veteran members of a discourse community and newcomers. Both new comers and old members pursue this goal together in order to shape interpersonal relationships among each other.This goal, or common enterprise, could be to plan an event, raise money for a charity, or accomplish a specific task within their community. The next mode described, imagination, entails newcomers locating their engagement in a broader system. During this newcomers create a course that connects them with their new goal within the discourse community and their external identity. Newcomers can come up with new ideas for an organization based on their pillars or main goals. This can either lead to a positive mode of belonging or can turn out to be disconnected to the goals of the community and detach newcomers. The third mode of belonging inside of a discourse community is alignment. This involves negotiating perspectives, finding common ground, and discussing broader visions and goals. Newcomers may talk in depth to old members about the ideas they have thought about and how they might work. Alignment may cause newcomers’ and oldcomers’ boundaries to merge or it could also be a violation of a person’s sense of self that crushes their identity.

In the group that I have chosen for Project 4 (Phi Gamma Nu Professional Business Fraternity) engagement comes in the form of active members informing pledges of our goals as an organization which include professional development, social, and philanthropy. Next, during the process called imagination, they are required to create an event for each pillar. A professional speaker, a philanthropic enevt, and a social event. Finally, they work together with active members to make sure that these ideas fit well with the Phi Gam objectives.