ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how adult learning unfolds in situations marked by epistemic plurality – that is, where participants engage across differing contexts of knowledge. Building on the concept of translation, it develops a typology of learning configurations that emerge through boundary-crossing: cross-boundary participation, cross-boundary communication, and third-space interaction. Each type is examined through an empirical case, illustrating how learning arises from the situated negotiation of relevance, participation, and meaning. Rather than conceiving of situated learning as a linear integration into self-sustaining communities of practice, the chapter conceptualises learning by translation as a relational and contingent process in which the navigation of differences between epistemic contexts constitutes a generative condition for knowledge formation. Linking ethnographic analysis with theories of translation practice, it offers a framework for understanding how adult learning takes shape at the boundaries between epistemic communities.
