We propose this category as one of the lover and the learner.
The amateur has transparent relations to his/her object.
She/he approaches and ultimately appropriates the object of knowledge out of enthusiasm, curiosity or perhaps a personal need.
She learns outside the circuits of professional normalization and reward.
e.g.,
She or someone she cares for might have food allergy requiring that she learn more than most want to know about how and of what our food is produced. She might have had a bad experience of childbirth and want to educate herself so as to her alternatives.
e.g.,
In the relatively new field of ecology the amateur continues to make significant contributions because the sheer amount and complexity of information required to tracks changes in the environment demands a phalanx of observers beyond what the profession can supply. People who are willing to stand in a wetlands for hours and tape the mating calls of frogs to chart the population status of amphibians. People who regularly observe birds residing in their own yards, or migration numbers in their location.
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