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Seeing and sensing the railways: A phenomenological view on practice-based learning
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Seeing and sensing the railways: A phenomenological view on practice-based learning

Thijs Willems
Management learning, Vol.49(1), pp.23-39
01/02/2018
PMID: 29503593

Abstract

Business & Economics Management Social Sciences
This article explores the role of embodied, sensible knowledge in practice-based learning. Despite recent efforts to conceptualize how practitioners become skillful through corporeal and sensible learning, it still seems under-theorized and hard to understand what this exactly entails. The aim of this article is to account for the inherently embodied and sensible nature of knowledge by drawing on a 2-year ethnographic study of train dispatchers in a railway control room. Embodied and sensible knowledge is developed through the work of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger, as phenomenology is a way to theorize the body beyond being an object to, instead, account for embodiment as lived and experienced. The data show that such knowledge can be understood as a matter of attunement': dispatchers become progressively skillful in bringing their bodies and senses in tune with practical situations and perturbations in the environment. The article contributes to a richer understanding of embodiment, especially in the relation between knowledge and practices, in organization studies and management learning.
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507617725188View
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