From critical vision to critical practice: Exploring the process of critical transformational learning among archaeologists

This case study examines a group of archaeologists working at a new project that strives to be more environmentally friendly and community inclusive, and positions these archaeologists as adult learners who are simultaneously creating a new vision of archaeology and learning to enact new forms of archaeological practice. Using the framework of critical transformational learning, we explore how the journeys of these individual archaeologists are integrated with social and contextual factors. In this paper we describe the project, present the vision that the archaeologists are currently creating, and describe some of the challenges these archaeologists are facing enacting that vision. We frame the archaeologists' learning process as critical transformational learning, and draw upon Giddens' structuration theory and Wilson and Hayes' explication of technical and practical action to expand the framework of transformational learning to take into account how these archaeologists are moving from critical vision to critical practice. This study illuminates the process of learning to integrate a critically transformed worldview into one's everyday practice of living.