Co-participative Learning through “Diverse Experts’” Relationality: A Case Study in a Major Italian Bank

The chapter explores innovative forms of relational, collaborative learning among highly specialized professionals. An ethnographic approach to learning processes remains rare in Italian anthropology, particularly in its practical applications within complex organizations. The research, conducted between 2011 and 2013 across five macro-areas of a major Italian private bank, involved multiple communities of practice in the retail sector. The resulting “prototype in process” demonstrated flexibility, enabling adaptation to varied corporate settings and diverse professional backgrounds. Revising the assumption of a novice’s peripheral co-participation with a single “expert,” the study reveals learning dynamics in which both colleagues are “diverse experts” (Bonetti 2017), each with distinct qualifications and competencies. Effective co-participation occurs when both adopt cognitive, mental, and embodied predispositions toward co-learning; otherwise, outcomes tend to be inadequate or resistant to change. The chapter offers a phenomenological reading of learning as a relational, embodied, and co-creative process fostering understanding and change in practice.