IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i7p1595-1612.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Rise and Fall of a Micro-Learning Region: Mexican Immigrants and Construction in Center-South Philadelphia

Author

Listed:
  • Natasha Iskander

    (Wagner School of Public Service, New York University, 295 Lafayette Street, Room 3043, New York, NY 10012, USA)

  • Nichola Lowe

    (University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, Department of City and Regional Planning, UNC-CH New East Building, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3140, USA)

  • Christine Riordan

    (National Employment Law Project, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 601, New York, NY 10038, USA)

Abstract

This paper documents the rise and fall of a micro-learning region in Philadelphia. The central actors in this region are undocumented Mexican immigrants who until recently were able to draw on the intensity of their workplace interactions and their heterodox knowledge to produce new and innovative building techniques in the city's residential construction. The new knowledge they developed was primarily tacit. More significantly, the learning practices through which immigrant workers developed skills and innovated new techniques were also heavily tacit. Because these practices were never made formal and were never made explicit, they remained invisible and difficult to defend. With the housing-market collapse and subsequent decline in housing renovation in the south-center region of Philadelphia, this tacit knowledge, and the practices that gave it shape and significance, are no longer easily accessible. We draw on this case to demonstrate the importance of access to the political and economic resources to turn learning practices into visible structured institutions that protect knowledge and skill. Whether or not the practices that support knowledge development are themselves made explicit can determine whether the knowledge they produce becomes an innovation that is recognized and adopted or whether it remains confined to a set of ephemeral practices that exist only so long as they are being enacted.

Suggested Citation

  • Natasha Iskander & Nichola Lowe & Christine Riordan, 2010. "The Rise and Fall of a Micro-Learning Region: Mexican Immigrants and Construction in Center-South Philadelphia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(7), pages 1595-1612, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:7:p:1595-1612
    DOI: 10.1068/a42475
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a42475
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a42475?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beth A. Bechky, 2003. "Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities: The Transformation of Understanding on a Production Floor," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 312-330, June.
    2. Gertler, Meric S., 2004. "Manufacturing Culture: The Institutional Geography of Industrial Practice," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198233824.
    3. Wanda J. Orlikowski, 2002. "Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 249-273, June.
    4. Ikujiro Nonaka & Georg von Krogh, 2009. "Perspective---Tacit Knowledge and Knowledge Conversion: Controversy and Advancement in Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 635-652, June.
    5. Scott D. N. Cook & John Seely Brown, 1999. "Bridging Epistemologies: The Generative Dance Between Organizational Knowledge and Organizational Knowing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(4), pages 381-400, August.
    6. Jamie Peck & Nikolas Theodore, 1998. "The Business of Contingent Work: Growth and Restructuring in Chicago's Temporary Employment Industry," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 12(4), pages 655-674, December.
    7. Chris Benner, 2003. "Labour Flexibility and Regional Development: The Role of Labour Market Intermediaries," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6-7), pages 621-633.
    8. Kevin Morgan, 1997. "The Learning Region: Institutions, Innovation and Regional Renewal," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 491-503.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Linda Argote & Ella Miron-Spektor, 2011. "Organizational Learning: From Experience to Knowledge," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1123-1137, October.
    2. Paola Perez-Aleman, 2011. "Collective Learning in Global Diffusion: Spreading Quality Standards in a Developing Country Cluster," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 173-189, February.
    3. Davide Nicolini, 2011. "Practice as the Site of Knowing: Insights from the Field of Telemedicine," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 602-620, June.
    4. Ferguson, J.E. & Huysman, M.H., 2009. "Between ambition and approach: towards sustainable knowledge management in development organizations," Serie Research Memoranda 0003, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    5. Loivaranta, Tikli, 2023. "Geographies of knowledge creation in forest rights claims-making processes among Indigenous communities in Central India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    6. Paul Vallance, 2011. "Relational and Dialectical Spaces of Knowing: Knowledge, Practice, and Work in Economic Geography," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(5), pages 1098-1117, May.
    7. Peter Tsasis & Jenna M. Evans & Linda Rush & John Diamond, 2013. "Learning to Learn: towards a Relational and Transformational Model of Learning for Improved Integrated Care Delivery," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-23, June.
    8. Heizmann, Helena & Fee, Anthony & Gray, Sidney J., 2018. "Intercultural Knowledge Sharing Between Expatriates and Host-country Nationals in Vietnam: A Practice-based Study of Communicative Relations and Power Dynamics," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 16-32.
    9. Claude Paraponaris, 2017. "Le passage des frontières : difficultés et perspectives. L’expérience des frontières cognitives," Post-Print halshs-01579851, HAL.
    10. Hong, Jacky Fok Loi & Snell, Robin Stanley & Easterby-Smith, Mark, 2009. "Knowledge flow and boundary crossing at the periphery of a MNC," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 539-554, December.
    11. Geilinger, Nina & Haefliger, Stefan & von Krogh, Georg & Rechsteiner, Lise, 2016. "What makes a social practice? Being, knowing, doing and leading," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 319-327.
    12. Emmanuelle Vaast & Geoff Walsham, 2009. "Trans-Situated Learning: Supporting a Network of Practice with an Information Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 547-564, December.
    13. Emil Evenhuis, 2017. "Institutional change in cities and regions: a path dependency approach," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 10(3), pages 509-526.
    14. Beth A. Bechky, 2006. "Gaffers, Gofers, and Grips: Role-Based Coordination in Temporary Organizations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 3-21, February.
    15. Mohajan, Haradhan, 2016. "Sharing of Tacit Knowledge in Organizations: A Review," MPRA Paper 82958, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2016.
    16. D'Adderio, Luciana, 2008. "The performativity of routines: Theorising the influence of artefacts and distributed agencies on routines dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 769-789, June.
    17. Jiajun Wu & Liwei Chen, 2022. "The Effects of Multilevel Orientations on Frontline Deliberate Learning," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    18. Luciana D’Adderio, 2014. "The Replication Dilemma Unravelled: How Organizations Enact Multiple Goals in Routine Transfer," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1325-1350, October.
    19. Daniel Geiger & Jochen Koch, 2008. "Von der individuellen Routine zur organisationalen Praktik — Ein neues Paradigma für die Organisationsforschung?," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 60(7), pages 693-712, November.
    20. Liubertė Irina, 2019. "On Social Knowledge and Its Empirical Investigation in Contemporary Organisations," Management of Organizations: Systematic Research, Sciendo, vol. 81(1), pages 21-37, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:7:p:1595-1612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.