Consuming metaphors: Stimulating questions for everyday learning

This paper about consumption as a metaphor for learning follows from some ideas about learning and space that emerged from a research project concerned with everyday learning at work. These learning/work spaces have drawn our attention to the significant consumption (eating and drinking) occurring within them. We suggest that linking everyday learning to the ordinariness of consuming opens up some interesting questions about everyday learning in the workplace. Furthermore, we believe this metaphor can be put to work from a range of theoretical perspectives, and in this paper we begin to explore how these perspectives might be mobilised in order to produce new understandings. In all, this paper offers a playful hors d’oeuvre, to stimulate further selection from a veritable smorgasbord, and one to satisfy a range of possible theoretical tastes.