Abstract
A key question for most societies is how to prepare young people for the demands of their future work and life environment. However, as Ronald Barnett (High Educ Res Dev 23(3):247–1260, 2004) remarks, ‘learning for an unknown future calls for an ontological turn from knowledge to being-in-the-world’, which makes its own demands. Being in the world calls for one’s opening up to new experiences, throwing oneself into a state of effort, engagement and inspiration.
In this chapter, the authors autoethnographically investigate mentoring and supervision as transgressive learning, as a mode of breaking the bounds of convention. The examples are mostly drawn from the context of research education. Marjatta Saarnivaara and Carolyn Ellis illuminate transgressive processes through their diverse experiences as teachers, as well as considering their pedagogical relevance in the process. Additionally, Saarnivaara presents her pedagogical viewpoint from an eccentric perspective, that is, as a novice who passionately wants to learn to dance salsa in her late middle age. Her change in perspective turned out to be an instructive experience. The third author, Helka-Maria Kinnunen, highlights her experiences and pedagogical viewpoint from the angle of being a doctoral student, a dream she got caught up in during the early phase of her own transgressive process.
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Notes
- 1.
Since there is no gender-neutral pronoun in English, I have decided to use pronoun she when I have no particular person in mind.
- 2.
- 3.
The discussion with Penny Phillips was taped and transcribed (Ellis, 2004, p. 334).
- 4.
The trip was organized by a Finnish salsa school and included teaching of salsa every day.
- 5.
Casino = Cuban partner-salsa. For simplicity, the term salsa will be used throughout to refer to this form of salsa.
- 6.
All the names are fabricated.
- 7.
The photos of the group sessions reveal this. I myself was not aware of my lack of expression at the time.
- 8.
Clave is the basic rhythm of Cuban dance music (see Gerard, 1998).
- 9.
Originally, the vaccination was a movement of the hips indicating intercourse, but variations have developed: a hand stretched out, the miming of a kick or a push, throwing a scarf. Of these, only the last involves physical contact with the woman. The woman protects her crotch area with the hem of her skirt, a scarf or her hand. However, she is not merely passive: she aims to provoke the vaccination with her dance movements.
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Saarnivaara, M., Ellis, C., Kinnunen, HM. (2012). Transgressive Learning: A Possible Vista in Higher Education?. In: Tynjälä, P., Stenström, ML., Saarnivaara, M. (eds) Transitions and Transformations in Learning and Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2312-2_18
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