- Aug 2020
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press.rebus.community press.rebus.community
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the voices from the periphery
What if, like me, they are voices considered to be in the center, assumed to be full of while privilege, not on the margins and not wanting to imagine much less create alternative, new worlds? I would argue that as an adjunct, someone over 65, and a farmer at the end of a half-mile hollar, that I am mos def on someone's damned margins. And who's to say otherwise.
John Seely Brown even talks about how the margins of open education create their own margins:
Open source communities have developed a well-established path by which newcomers can “learn the ropes” and become trusted members of the community through a process of legitimate peripheral participation. New members typically begin participating in an open source community by working on relatively simple, noncritical development projects such as building or improving software drivers (e.g., print drivers). As they demonstrate their ability to make useful contributions and to work in the distinctive style and sensibilities/taste of that community, they are invited to take on more central projects. Those who become the most proficient may be asked to join the inner circle of people working on the critical kernel code of the system. Today, there are about one million people engaged in developing and refining open source products, and nearly all are improving their skills by participating in and contributing to these networked communities of practice.
(Seely Brown, John, and R. P. Adler. “Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0.” Educause Review, vol. 43, no. 1, 2008, pp. 16–20.)
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a central location for the production of a counter-hegemonic discourse
So... if the margin can also be the center, then who and what is at the margin of this marginalized center? I suspect I am there. So who is at my margins and what are they countering? This map is an undiscovered territory.
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