Nettlesome knowledge

In education, there is literature on learning that examines "threshold concepts" (Land, Meyer & Smith, 2008). Threshold concepts are core concepts in a subject where understanding these concepts is key to transforming the way students understand the whole subject, allowing them to move on in their learning (Cousin, 2006; Meyer & Land, 2003). Threshold concepts can involve "difficult knowledge‟ (Britzman, 1998 p.2) and that knowledge can be "troublesome‟ (Perkins, 1999). Various types of knowledge can be "troublesome‟ for learners, such as if it is "inert, ritual, conceptually difficult, and foreign‟ (Perkins, 1999 p.8) of tacit etc, i.e.

“Inert”: not used /meaningful until needed;
“Ritual”: routine;
“Conceptually difficult”: hard to understand, counter-intuitive;
“Foreign”: from a perspective conflicting with our own, culturally different;
tacit knowledge (Meyer and Land, 2003);
language-related: (Meyer and Land, 2003), difficult language, jargon.

This literature often focuses on knowledge that is difficult in some cognitive or conceptual way.

Drawing on decades of experience of teaching education and psychotherapy and practising psychotherapy, I proposed a concept of "nettlesome knowledge" (Sibbett, 2005, 2006, 2008), i.e. that knowledge can be difficult and troublesome not just cognitively, but also emotionally, bodily - and this has ramifications attitudinally, inter-personally, institutionally, and socially.

Stinging nettles are a wild herbaceous perennial plant whose leaves can sting when touched, but they also have nutritional, practical and medicinal potential. Nettlesome knowledge is knowledge that, when we come into contact with it or brush against it or even approach it, evokes an emotional and embodied reaction. We can shy away from it, recoil, wince, grimace, look away, feel uncomfortable, or feel fear in our gut - fearing the sting! It can seem ungraspable because it is deemed awful and also ungraspable because of feared consequences - the fearful anticipation of the sting! Nettlesome knowledge can be regarded as unspeakable, unhearable, unseeable, unsharable, and even unthinkable. This can link to the concept of something which is taboo (Turner, 1967: 97). We can even take action to avoid encountering nettlesome knowledge at all, or we can close down someone who seems to be about to tell us something nettlesome. Someone who thinks they are about to receive some nettlesome knowledge cab hold their hand up briefly to block being told it. A giver of written nettlesome knowledge can pass it on almost at arms length, trying to distance from it.

Nettlesome knowledge is a type of knowledge that causes an emotional embodied reaction. It also comprises elements of knowledge that are deemed taboo in that they are defended against, repressed or ignored because, if they were grasped, they might sting. Thus nettlesome knowledge evokes a feared or actual intense emotional and embodied response. The sting of nettlesome knowledge makes us uncomfortable and so it can be stigmatised.

Threshold

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)

Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) at Navan (c)CS

How do individuals experience being the possessors of nettlesome knowledge? What effect does it have on them personally and professionally? How does it affect their relationship with their system (family, organisation, culture)? How do organisations respond to individuals who possess and try to share such nettlesome knowledge?

Barrier to learning

Nettlesome knowledge can evoke a state of aporia [a: lacking; poros: a passage] - a ‘state of conceptual puzzlement’ (Burbules, 1997). The Platonic concept of aporia is associated with doubt, uncertainty and non-passage. Plato uses corporeal metaphors to describe a sensation as one of feeling stung and ‘benumbed’ (by a torpedo fish/ray) during an experience as a necessary stage out of which learning can begin (Plato, 1964: 91). This can be the sting of the nettlesome knowledge. It is a state in which "a learner must be exposed, stripped of misconceptions, before true learning can occur‟ (Burbules, 1997). The aporia is thus a transitional time of potential for learning (Burbules, 1997). However, if such nettlesome knowledge is not grasped then learning can be blocked.

Nettlesome knowledge can be defended against also because it contradicts cherished beliefs / assumptions and collective collusions (at individual & organisational/social levels). Thus it may be deemed: unthinkable (Bion, 1959), unspeakable (mokita) (Winaver & Slama, 1993), unhearable (Beach et al, 2005), unseeable or untouchable. We can defend against difficult knowledge because we are holding on to “Lovely knowledge” i.e. cherished beliefs (Pitt & Britzman, 2003); “difficult knowledge is what one makes from the ruins of one’s lovely knowledge.” (Pitt & Britzman, 2003: 766). “Difficult knowledge” (Britzman, 1998) is... difficult, therefore we can resist difficult knowledge; “difficult knowledge can be refused” (Britzman, 1998: 118). It can present us with a moral dilemma. It can involve “social traumas” and can also be difficult for those learning about them (Pitt & Britzman, 2003). For example, witness and also being told about unethical or unsafe practice, knowledge of error, suffering, one's own vulnerability, death.

When encountering nettlesome knowledge, an individual can have various experiences. There can initially be shock / surprise; sometimes ‘why me?’; uncertainty: ‘what do I do?’. There can be a feeling of disenchantment: loss of pride of system/organisational membership / role, fall in perceived status of the system. This can bring about a change in relationship, loss of trust. There can be a response of fight / flight / freeze / fawn / forget. A person can feel out on a limb / outcast / out-group, plunged into a liminal state.

The concept of liminality is relevant. Van Gennep (2004) and Turner (1974) assert that liminality is a middle phase in rites of passage. First there is separation, then liminality, then potential re-incorporation. In change theory, this is described as: “ending, neutral zone, beginning again” (Bridges, 2001: 2). “In between the letting go and the taking hold there is a chaotic but potentially creative ‘neutral zone’ when things aren’t the old way, but aren’t really a new way yet either.” (Bridges, 2001: 2). “Going through an in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational. We call this time the ‘neutral zone’: it’s when the critical psychological realignments and repatternings take place.” (Bridges, 2003: 5). A person or system can get stuck in limbo, in chronic liminality (Turner, 1974). Troublesome knowledge can evoke “a suspended state" in which understanding approximates to a kind of mimicry or lack of authenticity” (Meyer & Land, 2003: 10), a “Professional Mask”.

How do systems (families, organisations) respond to individuals who try to share nettlesome knowledge? Acknowledging and working through the nettlesome knowledge could facilitate family bonding or organisational and professional development. However, it may also plunge the system (family, organisation and senior managers) into chronic liminal states. There can be resistance. Families or organisations can frequently try to silence, ignore, isolate or scapegoat individuals who possess nettlesome knowledge if they attempt to articulate it. We can fear, if grasped, such knowledge might ‘sting’ and thus it evokes a feared intense emotional and embodied response. Sometimes the holder / declarer of such knowledge can be left holding the ‘nettle’. If in a family or an organisational culture, such a person can be split off from the family or organisation and be perceived as the problem. They can be scapegoated as a dysfunctional way of attempting to dispose of the problem. Object relations theories are thus relevant to these dynamics (Sibbett, 2006).

Learning potential

Nettlesome knowledge can offer potential for learning. If we can grasp the nettle of such knowledge, there can be a beneficial potential. Nettles can be used for nutritional and pharmacological purposes (Bhusal et al, 2022).

Troublesome knowledge is a "threshold concept", “akin to a portal,” and there can be an “opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something” and “the transition to understanding” (Meyer & Land, 2003 p.1). If we can grasp the nettle - we can take the opportunity for the transformative potential of liminality (Turner, 1967: 99) to foster learning & the transition to re-incorporation, e.g. a more authentic professional Identity. (Erikson, 1994; Marcia, 2002; Krathwohl, Bloom & Masia, 1964). When addressed, a "threshold concept‟ is "transformative‟ in that it brings about a "significant shift in the perception‟ and possibly a "transformation of personal identity‟, a "shift in values, feeling or attitude‟ and may involve a "performative element‟ (Meyer and Land, 2003 p.4).

Liminality can have a potential as a place or state in which to get held or stuck (Turner, 1974), but it also has a potential for "processes of growth, transformation, and the formulation of old elements in new patterns‟ (Turner, 1967 p.99) and a kairotic "opening‟ or "opportunity‟ (White, 1987 p.13). Consistent with Meyer and Land's (2005) notion of threshold concepts, perhaps taboo and liminal material might be "nettlesome knowledge‟ in that it is difficult to grasp but if processed, like grit in an oyster, it can be transformed into something valuable. To follow Bion‟s (1959) digestion metaphor, perhaps the "nettle‟ can be used to make something that can become "food for thought‟ (Glover, 1998).

Drawing on Argyris and Schon's (1974, 1978) work, this can help a system address a gap between:
- the espoused theory: the values and world view that people believe their behaviour is based on; why and how they say / think they operate; and
- the theory-in-use: the values and world view that are apparent from their behaviour; why and how they actually operate.
These can be two congruent or different "theories of action" (Argyris, Putnam & McLain Smith, 1985, p.82). How a person or system reacts to dealing with nettlesome knowledge can reveal how congruent or incongruent their theories of action are. For example. a manager is told some nettlesome knowledge, they say they want to address it but then they shy away from it, cover it up. In such a case, their theory-in-use is incongruent with their espoused theory. Employing double-loop learning process can help address the mental model underpinning reactions to nettlesome knowledge. However, given the defence mechanisms humans can employ and also the very nature of nettlesome knowledge, such learning opportunities can be avoided.

It is speculated here that nettlesome knowledge and its associated liminality, if used in personal and professional development, can have a reflexive and transformative potential in which difficult topics can be faced and addressed. There can be spontaneous play with new ideas and identity development can occur. This might enable change to occur at deeper levels and ripple out to behaviour and products so that congruent ways of being are fostered. Discrepancies between what is espoused and what is enacted may be minimised by such professional development. We can apply mind and reflexivity to 'mind the gap' and lessen the gap by helping to grasp the unthinkable or that which could not previously be acknowledged.

The above is an ongoing development and adaptation from Sibbett (2005, 2006) and Sibbett and Thompson (2008).

Sibbett, C. and Thompson, W. (2008) Nettlesome knowledge, liminality and the taboo in cancer and art therapy experiences: implications for learning and teaching. In: Land, R., Meyer, J.H.F. and Smith, J. (Eds) Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines, (Chapter 17, pp. 227-242). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Sibbett, C.H. (2006b) Art therapy in cancer care: revelatory expression and inclusion of liminal and taboo issues, in Spring, D. (Ed.) Art In Treatment: Transatlantic Dialogue, Chpt.7. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher Ltd.

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Sibbett, C.H. (2006d) ‘Nettlesome’ knowledge, liminality and the taboo in cancer and art therapy experiences. Presentation at Symposium on Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines, Glasgow, Scotland 30th Aug–1st Sept 2006. Organised by University of Strathclyde, Durham University and Staffordshire University.

Sibbett, C.H. (2006e) ‘Nettlesome’ knowledge, liminality and the taboo in cancer and art therapy experiences. Paper accepted for presentation at 6th Qualitative Research Conference in Health and Social Care 2006, 4-6th September 2006, Bournemouth University.

Sibbett, C.H. and Thompson, W.T. (2008) ‘Nettlesome knowledge’ and threshold concepts in professional, organisational and higher educational cultures. Presentation at Threshold Concepts Symposium - from theory to practice, Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada, July 2008. Organised by Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario.

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Nettles at Navan. Photo (c)CS

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