Wayfaring and transport: negotiating contradictions in university adult education.

Abstract

This paper observes that Tim Ingold’s (2007) (2007) analysis of two modes of travel, wayfaring and transport, affords an interesting lens to view current perspectives of learning subtending adult education theory and practice. Ingold contrasts the image of the line as a trace left by an entity wandering through a terrain of lived experience (wayfaring) and the line as something that connects two points across the surface of an abstract space and time (transport). This correlates in interesting ways with the notion of learning as transporting knowledge into students’ heads, and the notion of learning as being woven into an ongoing flow of practice. The purpose of this paper is to relate how one university adult educator negotiates the contradictory imperatives of learning as transport and learning as wayfaring in his own practice.