Abstract
Becoming a master brewer requires “feeling” the tools and materials of the trade, learning to perceive these objects in terms of their practical purposes in making an authentic product, through a relationship between skill, learning, and practical knowledge. In this study, I explore how the profession and work as a master brewer is constructed, learned, and developed through everyday practical and subjective engagement with craft brewing, in which its embodied practice moves through sensory, subjective evaluation, empirical conditions and materialities that are manipulated in the creation of a recipe. Using an ethnographic perspective, we conducted participant observation, long interviews, informal interviews and following groups on social networks of the master brewers. Learning by doing in practice reveals broader processes through which artisans acquire knowledge. Working with materials, feeling them, observing them, listening to them and thus paying attention to what they can teach us is revealing of what we learn by virtue of our openness to the world. We emphasise the significance of immersion in a social world of work, exploring the meaning of learning grounded in situated practice, where practices are shared among its members, understandings about what they are doing, about competencies, about producing quality products and what this means in their lives and for their communities. By investigating the link between perception and understanding in craft brewing, I contribute to theoretical debates about craft work, making, informal and formal learning, the complex cognitive processes that underpin practical work and their relationships with materials, people, and practices.
Presenters
Andrey Felipe SgorlaPhD Candidate, Department of Social Sciences, Political and Cognitive, University of Sinea, Arezzo, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Adult, Community, and Professional Learning
KEYWORDS
Skill, Learning, Practical knowledge, Craftsmanship, Master brewer
