The New Artisan and Engineering Know-how: A Comparative Narrative Inquiry View Digital Media

Poster Session
Stephen Mears  

Artisanship and the traditionalist view to craftmanship it bestowed, held a strong place in history since the middle ages. Definitions and concepts alike, vary across histories and by historians. At the centre of the artisan’s existence was the nature of their work and the tools used to manufacture this work effort. In context to this interpretation, the vestige of ‘being artisan’ has much relevance today as it did then. In support, the purpose of this study is to challenge the view of knowledge maker by providing a narrative inquiry into the written text, semiotic, pictorial and tacit complexities of engineering know-how. A written component and pictorial schematic supported by discourse analysis tools is presented. To compare and contrast the traditional view of artisan, static images from the house books of the Nuremberg Twelve Brothers Foundations, is critiqued in context to a written translated text entitled, “The brain gets better through intensive use” (2013). A conceptual framework is developed, applying QDA Miner Lite coding together with annotating genre structure and discourse grammar to complement both the non-linguistic and linguistic orientation of the narrative. The inquiry provides a convincing argument for ‘skill application and use’, together with supporting the concept that ‘tools and methods’ themselves, become facilitators for engineering what might be called know-how. This interconnectedness supports knowledge sharing and learning for the new artisan. In doing so, it brings to the fore a pragmatism view to addressing complexity with underlying cognitive and bio-semiotic principles.