Academic literature on the topic 'Wayfaring learning'

AbstractThis article acknowledges that strategising processes revolve around allowing for continual shifts in an uncertain environment to constructively shape the ways in which managers strategise. The research question pursued in this article is: ‘How do unforeseen events shape managerial strategising?’ The theoretical background for this article is inspired by research done within the strategy-as-practice and strategy-in-practice communities and uses concepts such as strategic intent, wayfinding/wayfaring and temporal work to explore how the managers from the small Danish Software Company cooperated with actors in the mining industry. This cooperation was initially perceived as an unforeseen event but, incrementally and retrospectively, it became strategic. The main theoretical and practice-anchored findings draw attention to the roles that unforeseen events can play in shaping strategising. These findings underline the significance of prioritising micro-founded actions carried out contextually by strategists when learning more about the who, what and how of strategising.

To evaluate a model of the travel-route selection process for upper Ohio Valley Paleoindian foragers (13,500–11,400 cal BP), this study investigates archaeological data through the theoretical framework of landscape learning and risk-sensitive analysis. Following initial trail placement adjacent to a highly visible escarpment landform, Paleoindians adopted a risk-averse strategy to minimize travel outcome variability when wayfaring between Sandy Springs, a significant Ohio River Paleoindian site, and Upper Mercer–Vanport chert quarries of east-central Ohio. Although a least-cost analysis indicates an optimal route through the lower Scioto Valley, archaeological evidence for this path is lacking. Geomorphic and archaeological data further suggest that site absence in the lower Scioto Valley is not entirely due to sampling bias. Instead, evidence indicates that Paleoindians preferred travel within the Ohio Brush Creek–Baker's Fork valley despite its longer path distance through more rugged, constricted terrain. Potential travel through the lower Scioto Valley hypothesizes high outcome variability due to the stochastic nature of the late Pleistocene hydroregime. In this case, perceived outcome variability appears more influential in determining travel-route decisions among Paleoindians than direct efforts to reduce energy and time allocation.

This paper explores a common tension for parents and teachers working with young children – the tantrum. Building on practitioner-inquiry methodologies, I engaged in a living inquiry into my practices as a parent, with the initial goal of reducing or preferably eliminating my son’s angry outbursts. Frustrated with approaches informed by theories often applied within early learning contexts to address tantrums, including behavioural, attachment and self-regulation, I turned to new materiality theories, which provide a novel approach in understanding the socio-material constitution of subjectivities, emotions, and relationships. Within this assemblage, tantrums were reconfigured as a doing of emotions, occurring in the spaces in/between bodies, rather than an individual act of defiance. Through this inquiry, I shifted from a position of trying to intervene from the outside to eliminate, control or manage my son’s tantrums to a place of ‘intra-acting from within’ and journeying with. My parental inquiry became a site to continuously work and rework everyday life and participate in the creative practice of world making. Although the tantrums, which we came to know as Mad I’m mad, continued, the connection among and between my son and I shifted, often in positive and enduring ways. I came to understand parental inquiry as a practice of ‘wayfaring,’ where the focus is on the journey rather than the destination. These stories may ‘trace a path’ for other parents and educators as they participate within their own affective and embodied entanglements, creating new possibilities for teaching and learning relationships.

Due to different sort of preferences and restrictions of a trip such as time source limitation and every tourist’s destination points the travel based recommendation has become a challenging task. Most importantly the data generated by the geo-tagged social channel from the geo based tag tweets, snapshots of credentials. Due to examining this, extended data allows us to invent the profiles, daily mobility patterns, and results of the user’s. To resolve the issues and challenges of capacity providing their personalized and sequential travel to make package recommendation to a topical package model and to take using social media info in which mechanically mine person travel interest with another quality like time, cost, and period of wayfaring. Here, we had a proposal that a travel data sequence after a multi source recommendation system. We implemented a location recommendation system that derives personal preferences while accounting for restraints irremissibly by road capacity in order to change the demand of travel. We first infer unobserved preferences using a machine learning technique from data mining records. It extends our method to provide personalized suggestions based on user geo co-ordinates points. By utilizing the tree based hierarchal graphs (TBHG), location histories of the multiple users’ have been modeled. In order to collect the selected places interest level and travel knowledge of user’s, the HITS model had developed based on TBHG. Finally, hybrid filtering approach based on HITS is utilized to get the global positioning system (GPS) based personalized recommendation system. And for image based search similar images with the tag information are retrieved for the query image users.

Over the past two decades, location-based games have moved from media art fringes to the mass cultural mainstream. Through their locative affordances, these game types enable practices of wayfaring and placemaking, with the capacity to deliver powerful tacit knowledge. These affordances suggest the potential for the development of location-based games in educational contexts. This paper presents three cases studies—TIMeR and Wayfinder Live and Pet Playing four Placemaking—to illustrate how each uses elements of wayfaring and placemaking to bring new opportunities for education through a tacit knowledge approach.

“Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times” (Freud 37-39).Introduction and Background Self-tracking is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, people have used self-examination and monitoring as a means to attain knowledge and understanding about themselves. People would often record their daily activities (like food consumption, sleep and physical exercise) and write down accompanying thoughts and reflections. However, the advent of digital technology in the past decades has drastically changed the self-tracking sphere. In fact, the popularisation of self-tracking technology (STT) in mobile applications and wearable devices has allowed users to track daily activities on a closer and more accurate scale than previously affordable. Gary Wolf, the founder of a niche movement called the ‘Quantified Self’, suggested that “if you want to replace the vagaries of intuition with something more reliable, you first need to gather data. Once you know the facts, you can live by them” (Wolf). This reveals that STT has the capacity to guide users by virtue of the data collected and insights provided by the technology. Thus, instead of using intuition, which is potentially unreliable and subjective, data – finite and objective by nature – can be used to guide the process by providing definitive facts, figures and patterns. Arguably, this technologises users, allowing them to enhance their performance and capabilities by using STTs to regulate and monitor their behaviour. Hence, in this article, I position self-tracking technology (STT) as an interactive media technology, a tool for surveillance and regulation, and an “extension of man”. However, the use of and reliance on STT can compromise personal autonomy, and this journal article will investigate how users’ personal autonomy has been affected due to STT’s function as an extension of man, or a “prosthetic”. I use case study vignettes to investigate impacts on personal autonomy in three spheres: the workspace, relationships and the physical environment. Extending ManSTTs reconfigure our bodies in data form and implicate our personhood and autonomy. Human physicality has changed now that technology and data have become so integral to how we experience and view our bodies. STTs technologise human bodies, transforming them into data bodies, augmented and reliant on digital media. As Marshall McLuhan (63) put it: “In this electric age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness”. With the integration of STT into our daily lives, consumers increasingly rely on cues from their devices and applications to inform them about their bodies. This potentially affects the autonomy of an individual – since STT becomes an extension of the human body. In the 1960s, when the mass media was burgeoning, Marshal McLuhan proposed the idea that the media acted as an extension of man. STTs similarly act as an extension of users’ embodied capabilities and senses, since the data collected by these technologies is shared with users, allowing them to alter their bodies and minds, aiming to be as productive and effective as possible. In Understanding Media, McLuhan’s interpretation of electronic media was prescient. He anticipated the development of so-called “smart” devices, noting that, in the information age man “wears [his] brain outside [his] skull and [his] nerves outside [his] hide” (63). This is reflective of STT’s heavy reliance on sensor technology and smart technology. Simply examining how a Fitbit – a popular wearable self-tracking device – operates is illustrative. For instance, some Fitbits have an altimeter sensor that detects when the wearer is elevated, and hence counts floors. Fitbits also count steps using a three-axis accelerometer, which turns the wearer’s movements into data. Furthermore, Fitbit devices are capable of analysing and interpreting this acceleration data to provide insights about “frequency, duration, intensity, and patterns of movement to determine [users’] steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned, and sleep quality” (“Fitbit”). Fitbit relies on sensor technologies (“nerves”) to detect and interpret activities, and such insights are then transmitted to users’ smart devices (“brains”) for storage, to be analysed at a time of convenience. This modus operandi is not exclusive to Fitbit, and in fact, is the framework for many STTs. Hence, STTs have the potential to extend the natural capabilities of the human body to regulate behaviour.The WorkplaceThis notion of STT as a regulatory prosthetic is seen in its ability to enforce standardised norms on individuals by using surveillance as a disciplinary measure. STTs can enforce norms on users by transforming the workplace into a panopticon, which is an institutional structure that allows a watchman to observe individuals without them knowing whether they are being watched or not. STTs are used to gather data about performance and behaviour, and users are monitored constantly. As a result, they adjust their behaviouraccordingly. US retail titan Amazon has repeatedly raised concerns over the past years because of its use of wearables to survey workers during shifts. Adam Littler, an Amazon employee, came forward in 2013 accusing his employers of forcing him to walk 11 miles during a single work shift. His distance travelled was measured and tracked using a pedometer, while a handheld scanner guided him around the warehouse and notified him if he was meeting his targets (Aspinall). Amazon also recently designed and patented a wristband that is capable of tracking wearers’ (employees’) movements, including hand placement (Kelly). The reliance on such tracking technology to guide actions and supplement users with information to increase productivity reveals how STT can serve as a prosthetic that is used to enhance man’s abilities and performance However, the flipside of such enhancement is exploitation – employers augment users with technology and force them to adhere to standards of performance that are difficult to achieve. For instance, documents have recently surfaced that suggest Amazon terminates employees based on productivity statistics. It was reported that around 300 full-time employees were fired for “failing to meet productivity quotas”. According to the documents, “Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity and automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or productivity without input from supervisors” (Lecher). This is reflective of how actors that are in power, like employers, can impose self-tracking practises onto employees that compromise their personal autonomy. Foucault finds that the panopticon’s utility and potency as a discipline mechanism lies in its efficiency as enforcers do not have to constantly survey people to ensure they conform. Thus, it manoeuvres existing power structures to achieve a particular goal – for instance, higher productivity or economic growth. Foucault also notes: The discipline of the workshop, while remaining a way of enforcing respect for the regulations and authorities, of preventing thefts and losses, tends to increase aptitudes, speeds, output and therefore profits; it still exerts a moral influence over behaviour, but more and more it treats actions in terms of their results, introduces bodies into a machinery, forces into an economy. (210) STTs in the workspace (or workshop) can act as prostheses, allowing employers to enhance their employee’s capabilities. Such technology creates an environment in which workers feel pressured to perform in adherence to certain set standards. Thus, employees are disciplined by STTs, and by the surveillance of their employers that follows. Arguably, such surveillance is detrimental to personal autonomy, as the surveyed feel that they have to behave in compliance to standards enforced by those in power (ie. their employers). Physical Environment With the aim of productivity and efficiency in mind, users grow dependant on devices to augment their realities with helpful technology. As mentioned earlier, McLuhan (90) ideates that “technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed” is particularly significant. The iPhone is an example that illustrates this point very clearly as they are inbuilt with complex technology that includes a variety of sensors. The iPhone 7, for example, has a range of sensors including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, a GPS, a barometer, and an ambient light sensor (Nield). These gather information about users’ surroundings and feed it back to them, and they are then able to make informed decisions. Hence, if a user wants to travel to a certain place, the phone has the ability to point out the quickest route possible, or which route to take if they would like to stop by a certain location along the way. This cultivates a reliance on navigational technologies that use automated self-tracking to direct users’ daily lives, functioning as an extension and enhancement of their geographical memory and sense of direction. However, using these technologies may in fact be dulling our body’s abilities. For instance, anthropologist Tim Ingold posits that relying on navigation technology has reduced humans’ inborn wayfaring capabilities (Ingold). These satellite navigation technologies are one of the most popular ways in which people track their movements and move through space; for instance, a whole market of rideshare applications like Uber and OlaCabs rely on this technology. Using this technology has allowed people to navigate and travel with ease. However, this can be seen to lead to a lack of “spatial awareness and cartographic literacy”. Essentially, traditional maps skills are viewed as redundant and it can encourage an over-reliance on technology (Speake and Axon). According to McKinlay navigation is a “use-it-or-lose-it skill” and “automatic wayfinding” was reducing natural navigation abilities. A UCL neuroscience study found that licensed London taxi drivers have a larger than average hippocampus in their brains, as they are capable of storing a mental map of the city in their minds, by learning street layouts and locations of places of interest. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is linked to spatial memory and navigation skills (Maguire, Woollett and Spiers 1093). Dr Eleanor Maguire, the neuroscientist who led the study, noted that if the taxi drivers started “using GPS, that knowledge base will be less and possibly affect the brain changes we are seeing” (Dobson). In turn, an increasing reliance on GPS and navigation technologies in self-tracking devices may result in a diminishing hippocampus, according to neuroscientist Veronique Bohbot of McGill University. The atrophy of the hippocampus has also been linked to the risk of dementia (Weeks), which reveals how the technologies that augment space may atrophy the “natural abilities” (McKinlay) and thus, the autonomy of users. RelationshipsAs with areas like the workspace and spatial environments, sociality and intimacy are increasingly being mediated by technology – the digital capabilities of new media have expanded users’ options and provided a variety of technological tools that allow us to streamline and reflect on social interactions and behaviour, serving as a social prosthetic. This is especially significant in the sphere of self-tracking. However, relying on STT to gain insight into sociality may alter the ways in which we think of intimacy and communication, and may also have an impact on users’ independence and trust. Hasinoff (497-98) notes that using tracking technologies within families and intimate relationships can have potentially harmful effects, such as a loss of trust. In particular, children who are pushed into self-tracking by their families may suffer from a loss of independence as well as an inability to perceive and react to risk. In such a situation, STT serves as a prosthetic that aims to ensure safety, however, surveillance through STTs enforces power disparities and simultaneously creates a dependency between the watched and watchers, and this would affect users’ personal autonomy as they are viewed under a panoptic lens. In fact, Hasinoff finds that “[family tracking and monitoring apps] exaggerate risks, offer illusory promises of safety, and normalize surveillance and excessive control in familial relationships”. I argue that this is the consequence of pushed self-tracking in the sphere of sociality and intimacy. Users may feel pressure from their families or partners to participate in self-tracking and allow their data to be accessed by them. However, the process of participating in such a mediated and monitored relationship could create “asymmetrical relations of visibility” (Trottier 320), as this sharing of information may not always be two sided. For instance, on the app Life360, parents can enforce that their children share their locations at all times, while they are able to conceal their own locations. This intensifies the watcher’s control and diminishes the watched’s privacy and autonomy. Quite ironically, Life360’s tagline is “feel free, together”. As an app geared at family safety, Life360 assumes that the family is a safe space – however, families too may pose a significant risk to vulnerable users’ (such as young children and women) autonomy and privacy. User complaints about inaccurate location information reveal “controlling, asymmetrical, and potentially abusive uses of the app” that can aggravate dysfunctional power dynamics in intimate and familial relationships. For instance, jealous partners or overprotective parents could grow increasingly suspicious or even aggressive (Hasinoff 504). Critical users who reviewed the app claimed that the app “ruined [their] social life” and enabled their “family to stalk [them] 24/7”. In another case, a user claimed the app was “toxic”, noting it would “destroy their [children’s] trust” (App Store; Life360). While the app asserts that each user does have control over the extent of location sharing, they may feel the need to remain visible because of familial pressure and expectations, since their family relies visibility on the app as an indicator of safety. This too, is problematic – self-tracking one’s locations provides just that – a geolocation pin, which is not a clear measure or indicator of the well-being or safety of the user. Simpson argues that constructing location information as safety information is not reliable because it could “promote a false sense of security based on the sense that if you know where your child is then that means they are safe” (277). Additionally, this also sets an imperative that users need to be monitored or monitor themselves at all times to ensure safety, and such a use of surveillance technology could result in users being hyperalert and anxious (Hasinoff 497). Extending man’s awareness to this degree and engaging in such surveillance may create a false sense of security and dependency, that ultimately puts everyone’s autonomy at risk.ConclusionSTT performs as an informational prosthetic for man. We conventionally tend to think of prostheses as extensions of our physical and sensory abilities, used to enhance or replace missing functions. In the case of STT, they have inbuilt decision-making and guidance capabilities, enhancing humans’ ability to process and understand information. This is a new type of digital prosthetic that has not existed before. It thus seems that the new generation of prostheses are no longer just physical and material – they operate as intellectual and cognitive extensions of our bodies. However, when users’ decision-making processes are increasingly displaced by informational prostheses, it is important to determine the extent to which they are impairing our organic capacity for orienting, sense-making and intimacy. ReferencesApp Store. Mobile app. Apple Inc. Accessed 1 Jun. 2019.Aspinall, Adam. “Amazon Forces Warehouse Staff to Walk 11 Miles per Shift Says Former Employee.” Mirror 25 Nov. 2013. <https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/city-news/amazon-worker-rights-retail-giant-2851079>.Dobson, Roger. “Cabbies Really Do Have More Grey Matter to Store All That Information, Scientists Say.” Independent 17 Dec. 2006. <https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/taxi-drivers-knowledge-helps-their-brains-grow-428834.html>.Fitbit. “How Does My Fitbit Device Calculate My Daily Activity?” 1 June 2019 <https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1141>.Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin, 1977. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: Picador, 1930.Hasinoff, Amy Adele. “Where Are You? Location Tracking and the Promise of Child Safety.” Television & New Media 18.6 (2016): 496-512. DOI: 10.1177/1527476416680450.Ingold, Tim. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge, 2011.Kelly, Heather. “Amazon's Idea for Employee-Tracking Wearables Raises Concerns.” CNN Business 2 Feb. 2018. <https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/02/technology/amazon-employee-tracker/index.html>. Lecher, Colin. “How Amazon Automatically Tracks and Fires Warehouse Workers for ‘Productivity’.” The Verge 25 Apr. 2019. <https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/25/18516004/amazon-warehouse-fulfillment-centers-productivity-firing-terminations>.Life360. “Life360 – Feel Free, Together.” 1 June 2019 <https://www.life360.com/>.Lupton, Deborah. The Quantified Self. Malden: Polity, 2016.Maguire, Eleanor, Katherine Woollett, and Hugo Spiers. “London Taxi Drivers and Bus Drivers: A Structural MRI and Neuropsychological Analysis.” Wiley Interscience 16.12 (2006): 1091-1101. DOI: 10.1002/hipo.20233.McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.McKinlay, Roger. “Technology: Use or Lose Our Navigation Skills.” Nature 30 Mar. 2016. <https://www.nature.com/news/technology-use-or-lose-our-navigation-skills-1.19632>.Nield, David. “All the Sensors in Your Smartphone, and How They Work.” Gizmodo Australia 28 July 2017. <https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/07/all-the-sensors-in-your-smartphone-and-how-they-work/>.Satariano, Adam. “Would You Wear a FitBit So Your Boss Could Track Your Weight Loss?” Daily Herald 9 Jan. 2014. <https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140901/business/140909985/>.Simpson, Brian. “Tracking Children, Constructing Fear: GPS and the Manufacture of Family Safety.” Information & Communications Technology Law 23.3 (2014): 273–285. DOI: 10.1080/13600834.2014.970377.Speake, Janet, and Stephen Axon. “‘I Never Use ‘Maps’ Anymore’: Engaging with Sat Nav Technologies and the Implications for Cartographic Literacy and Spatial Awareness.” The Cartographic Journal 49.4 (2013): 326-336. DOI: 10.1179/1743277412Y.0000000021.Trottier, Daniel. “Interpersonal Surveillance on Social Media.” Canadian Journal of Communication 37.2 (2012): 319–332. DOI: 10.22230/cjc.2012v37n2a2536.Weeks, Linton. “From Maps to Apps: Where Are We Headed?” NPR 4 May 2010. <https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124608376>.Wolf, Gary. “The Data-Driven Life.” The New York Times Magazine 28 Apr. 2010. <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html>.

Esplorando la modalità di apprendimento che definisce “wayfaring”, la Pedagogia dello Sforzo Evolutivo (neologismo) affronta il controverso concetto islamico di ğihād, che, in prospettiva pedagogica, educa allo sforzo (ğ-h-d) ritenuto necessario ai fini dell’affinamento spirituale (ğihād al-akbar) e dell’avanzamento lungo il sentiero della conoscenza (ğihād al-‘ilm). In quest’ottica, se lo sforzo è scansato e il movimento è trattenuto, la marcia verso la comprensione rallenta fino silenziare le potenzialità evolutive, con ricadute che coinvolgono tanto il benessere dell’individuo, quanto quello della comunità. Protagonista della ricerca è il muğāhid: un soggetto in apprendimento la cui condizione di imperfezione e perfettibilità sottintende un accrescimento, una processualità verso la quale l’educazione dovrebbe svolgere un compito di cura. La scelta di ispirarsi alla figura del muğāhid è dettata dall’intenzione di dimostrare come la supposta alterità meriti di essere considerata per il suo ruolo formativo e non solo oppositivo o aggiuntivo. La sua inclusione nel discorso promuove la messa in discussione di considerazioni mono-prospettiche e perentorietà che non possono permettersi di sussistere in una realtà naturalmente pervasa da un’incontenibile propensione al cambiamento. La ricerca lascia dialogare la tradizione islamica con la teoria dell’apprendimento trasformativo di Jack Mezirow (1978, 1981, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003a, 2003b, 2016) e le elaborazioni di Joseph Campbell (1958, 2012a, 2012b) e Christopher Vogler (2010) attorno al tema del viaggio eroico, privilegiando il mito e la poesia quali media educativi. Nel mentre, esplora il modo in cui il concetto di ğihād è trasmesso all’interno di un collegio religioso tradizionale giavanese. La ricerca è condotta con metodo qualitativo etnografico, in cornice epistemologica ermeneutico-costruttivista. Al fine di salvaguardare la dimensione di dialogo e co-costruzione dei significati, sono stati condotti colloqui individuali e video-interviste con testimoni privilegiati e voci eloquenti del panorama teologico di Sufismo, Sunna, Ši’a e Cristianesimo e, con l’intenzione di stimolare il confronto fra le loro divergenti prospettive, è stato organizzato e mediato un incontro dal nome di “Web-šāy”: un focus-group internazionale e interreligioso attorno al tema dell’educazione al ğihād. La costruzione teorica della tesi riflette i contenuti delle conversazioni con i partecipanti e i risultati dell’approfondimento delle fonti bibliografiche. Il testo consta di una prima parte (quattro capitoli), in cui è presentata la Pedagogia dello Sforzo Evolutivo e di una seconda (quattro capitoli), centrata sull’allegoria del viaggio eroico e il suo confronto con la teoria dell’apprendimento trasformativo di Mezirow e la processualità individuata nel percorso d’iniziazione emergente dall’azione del muğāhid. Nel medesimo modo in cui invita a considerare con sguardo critico costruttivo le cornici di riferimento fornite dalla cosiddetta “prima casa”, la Pedagogia dello Sforzo Evolutivo si interroga su quali siano i rischi del preservare la purezza di una teorizzazione “originaria”, distinta da ogni possibile adattamento o reinterpretazione, e rimarca la sconvenienza delle brame di immobilità e di separazione. Seguendo le medesime logiche che applica nell’indagare le derive estremistiche e la riluttanza al movimento, esorta la comunità scientifica a non impigrirsi in una propria, singolare, nicchia speculativa. La esorta a sporgersi con interesse autentico verso il non conosciuto e ad apprendere a osservare uno stesso oggetto di indagine attraverso le lenti rese disponibili da altre discipline, altre tradizioni culturali, altri bagagli esperienziali.
Exploring the way of learning which the thesis defines “wayfaring”, the Pedagogy of Evolutionary Effort (neologism) discusses the controversial Islamic concept of ğihād, which, from a pedagogical perspective, educates to perform an effort (ğ-h-d) that is necessary to the purposes of spiritual refinement (ğihād al-akbar) and advancement along the path of knowledge (ğihād al-‘ilm). From this perspective, if effort is avoided and movement is restrained, the walk towards understanding slows down, till human evolutionary potential is silenced, with repercussions which involve the well-being of both the individual and the community. Protagonist of research is the muğāhid: a learner, whose condition of imperfection and perfectibility implies an increase, a process for which education should hold a caring task. The choice to let the muğāhid being inspiring, is induced by the intention to demonstrate how supposed otherness deserves to be considered for its formative role, and not just for its oppositional or additional one. Its inclusion in the discourse promotes the questioning of mono-perspective and peremptory considerations which cannot afford to exist in a reality that shows to be naturally pervaded by an irrepressible propensity for change. The thesis allows a dialogue among Islamic tradition, the Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 1978, 1981, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003a, 2003b, 2016) and the writings of Joseph Campbell (1958, 2012a, 2012b) and Christopher Vogler (2010) about the theme of the hero’s journey, promoting myth and poetry as educational media. In the meanwhile, it explores the way the concept of ğihād is explained inside a traditional Javanese religious boarding school (qualitative research, ethnographic method; hermeneutic constructivist epistemological framework). To safeguard the dimensions of dialogue and co-construction of meaning, the researcher arranged individual video-interviews with Privileged Witnesses and eloquent voices belonging to the theological panorama of Sufism, Sunna, Ši’a and Christianity. Moreover, with the purpose of stimulating the comparison between their divergent perspectives, she organized and mediated a meeting called "Web-šāy": an international and interreligious focus-group about the issue of education to ğihād. The theoretical construction of the thesis reflects both the contents of the conversations with participants and the result of the in-depth study of bibliographic sources. The text consists of a first part (four chapters), in which the Pedagogy of Evolutionary Effort is presented, and of a second part, (four chapters), which is centred on the allegory of the hero’s journey and its comparison with Mezirow's Transformative Learning Theory and the process of initiation emerging from the action of the muğāhid. Inviting to consider, in a critical constructive way, the frames of reference which are provided by the so-called “first home”, the Pedagogy of Evolutionary Effort questions the risk of preserving the purity of an “original” theorization, avulsed from any possible adaptation or reinterpretation, and emphasizes the impropriety of longing for immobility and separation. Following the same logic that it applies to the investigation of extremist tendencies and reluctance to move, the thesis urges the scientific community not to withdraw in its singular, speculative niche and exhorts it to turn with genuine interest towards the unknown and learn to observe its object of investigation through lenses that are made available by other disciplines, other cultural traditions, by another experiential baggage.