Abstract
The path to becoming an adult learning scholar and/or adult educator is often a patchwork set of experiences. The author, Aliki Nicolaides, leans into her eclectic international upbringing, joys and pains, and most cherished relationships, to articulate generative knowing, a nomadic theory of adult learning. This book builds on over 15 years of work, beginning with her dissertation in 2008 at Teachers College, Columbia University where she used phenomenology to explore the lived experiences of adults encountering complexity and ambiguity. In the book, she describes generative knowing as “ways of being and becoming that activate potential creativity” (p. 25). She challenges the core assumption of traditional learning environments that seek to “save you from the dangers of the unknown” (p. xxii). In fact, it is purposeful engagement with the unknown that “ruptures” our meaning-making and where generative knowing begins (p. 8). To depict a core component of generative knowing, she offers the neologism “In-scend” which is “to inquire beneath experience, the territory of the unknown” (p. 61).
After the introduction in Chapter 1, Nicolaides situates the book in the scholarly discourse and connects it with the work of Dewey, Follett, Rogers, Vygotsky, and Freire (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 describes her phenomenological approach to this inquiry, in particular the role of ambiguity (i.e., “mystery hidden in potential” p. 29). The heart of the book is Chapters 4–6 where Nicolaides shares her deeply personal lived experience of “Ruptures, In-scending, and Awaring” (p. 51) and reflects, in part, on the lives of her parents as a guide for readers to understand this nomadic theory of adult learning. In Chapter 7, a graduate student of Nicolaides’, Ahreaum Lim, shares a guest chapter that brings generative knowing to inquiries about technology and the future of work based on her South Korean heritage. The book ends with a short conclusion (Chapter 8) corralling the disparate excursions of the previous chapters and offering brief implications for practice for adult educators interested in facilitating generative knowing. These are separated into “internal dispositions” of educators themselves such as “courageous vulnerability” (p. 132)—which she and Lim exemplify in their writing—as well as “external scaffolds” that educators can employ in their learning spaces such as the “use of narrative, storytelling, and restory(ing) that move across time and space” (p. 133).
A strength of the book is its creative and personal approach to communicating the content, likely a necessity for a nomadic theory of adult learning. Readers follow the author's journey of generative knowing through the “complexity of inter-actions” (p. 61) embodied in her experience of childhood trauma and in-scending with “fungi” (p. 53). Some readers will surely relate to the process of “reterritorializing” (p. 61) her relationships with her mother (Chapter 5) and father (Chapter 6). In doing so, she weaves in conversations about gender, race, class, national origin, and culture. The personal approach and heavy emphasis on her parents could also be perceived as a limitation of the book as some readers might not appreciate its connection with generative knowing. Others might argue it dips too deeply into the autobiographical. Still, the autoethnographic nature of Chapters 4–6 would likely make it attractive for a book club of adult educators who could then participate in some of the generative knowing practices outlined in Chapter 8.
This book eschews many conventions of academic writing. At times I wished for simpler writing or easier answers. I found myself jotting questions in the margins and wishing for further elaboration or development on particular ideas, such as on the new materialist stance of the book. This book will likely be challenging for post-positivists or students grasping for concreteness. That said, the idea of generative knowing is inherently complex, and “ambiguity is the currency of this practice” (p. 9).
Given the short length of the book, the author could have included additional chapters expounding on implications for research and practice, which were touched on in Chapter 8. While Chapter 3 outlines the phenomenological approach undergirding this work, additional methodological considerations could aid scholars and doctoral students interested in conducting this work themselves. One could also imagine a future edited book with chapters—similar to the guest chapter by Lim—to expound upon generative knowing in different contexts and by different individuals.
The embeddedness of this book in the adult education literature makes it appropriate for use in graduate courses in adult education, adult learning, and human resource development. I imagine that adult educators and scholars will benefit from the vulnerable guidance of Nicolaides in demonstrating the value of learning that occurs beneath our awareness and living into the creative potential among us.
