Thursday, May 03, 2012

Tacit knowledge, Haptics and Embodied Knowledge - resources

Following up on several previous posts relating to studying how students learn a trade, three useful resources to explore further in tacit knowledge, haptics and embodied knowledge.


Professor Alice Lam from the University of London presents an overview of tacit knowledge, from a organisational management perspective. Table 2 summarises the individual/organisational differences for standardised and non-standardised work. So for individuals – standardardised work involves ‘embrained knowledge, non-standardised involves ‘embodied knowledge. On the organisational level, standardised work needs ‘encoded knowledge’ and non-standardised uses ‘embedded knowledge’. 

David Prytherch and Bob Jerrard from Birmingham University present an interesting paper ‘Haptics, the Secret Senses: the covert nature of the haptic senses in creative tacit skills’ through findings from a study of skilled artists and propose that skilled manual work (sculpting, glass blowing, glass engraving and blacksmithing) requires engagement of all senses. Visual sense plays role as a monitor while other senses are important in completing skilled work.

Lastly, a blog on embodied knowledge, featuring the work of Merleu-Ponty. An overview of another aspect of embodiment.