The action of the gesture can be divided into an orderly series of basic actions, coordinated in sequences of variable duration according to the intensity of the effort required, organized on a model learned from others through imitation (someone showed me how to do it), reconstituted from memory (I saw it done this way), or established through trial and error based on similar actions (I ended up figuring out how to do it).As I've said, I always enjoy a typology and this brief list of ways in which a skill can be acquired appeals to me. I'm interested in the subtle distinction between 'having someone show you' and simply 'seeing it done'. It reminds me of something I read about tool use in primates. I won't be able to lay hands on the reference now but I think the writer was talking about chimpanzees. The point was that the adults don't actually teach the young ones the techniques of tool use, but, because the adults routinely carry the babies around on their backs, the young animals have plenty of opportunity to see the relevant gestures being performed. The general nature of the care-giving makes that kind of learning viable.
It occurs to me that, for us, books can serve to set in motion a process of 'trial and error'. Giard is, of course, writing about cookery and I've certainly learned a number of cooking techniques by reading. However, and this is important, you don't come away with a body of knowledge derived entirely from the book. Instead, you acquire some basis to begin a process of trial and error. If you don't get it right first time, you might seek advice from someone who knows about these things. Or you might just try again on your own, following your intuitions about what is likely to work better. (Actually, my knowledge of cookery derives both from observing others and from reading followed by trial-and-error. In the former category an image springs to mind of trimming the excess pastry from a pie by holding the left hand palm up, curving the fingers upwards so that they form a kind of stand for the dish, and then running a vertical blade around the edge with the right hand. It's difficult to describe in words but I have a vivid recollection of seeing my mother doing it - the dish was white enamel, as I recall.) As Kate said in one of her comments, the fishing books in libraries seem to be borrowed very regularly and I suppose they provide a source of advice to people engaged in these processes of trial and error. Again, we'll have to talk to the anglers about it.
Giard then goes on to say something about adaptability: 'The skill at adapting the gesture to the conditions of execution and the quality of the obtained result constitute the test for putting a particular savoir fair into practice and foregrounding it.' This seems to me quite a rich observation. Certainly in cookery, to adapt the gesture to the present conditions is a real sign of a proper cook. If you rely on recipes, then you can't depart from their very rigid structures. But if you really understand food, then you have much more flexibility. Giard's insistence that 'gesture sequences' are both mental and physical also seems relevant here - the adaptation is sometimes made after a process of reasoning. But can it also 'come from' the body? Does the body itself take the decision at times?
I'm also fascinated by the term savoir faire, which, of course, literally means 'knowing how to do', but has a much more dense set of connotations than the English phrase. It seems to imply a sense of ease in the world which can extend beyond the practical into the handling of social relationships and human interactions.
Do you see what I mean? There is a suggestive weight to a lot of Giard's remarks but she doesn't always take them far herself. You have to ponder them to see why they strike you as telling (and, in our case, to decide whether they seem transferable from the kitchen to the banks of the pond).
Embodied knowledge is interesting. There is a lot written about the concept of 'communities of practice' from Lave and Wenger also 'funds of knowledge' in households from Luis Moll and colleagues in Arizona. But one of the things I am also interested in is the accidental, happenstance kind of embodied knowing. Here is a passage from 'The Waterlog Years' one of my Angling books from Rotherham Library: 'The great thing about fishing is that no matter how clumsy and incompetent you are, or how skilful and experienced, the elements of chance will often play a greater part than the elements of design. Even on the worst seeming day when all the conditions turn cruelly against you, the fish disappear and your tackle becomes possessed by the Antichrist, something wondrous maybe suddenly respond to your final half-hearted cast. (Yates 2006 p. 57).
ReplyDeleteAs I types that, I flicked open the front inside cover and noticed the book had been signed by the author. A signed copy of a book in Rotherham Library. Wonders will never cease.