The descr-ipcjon of Yucatec apprenticeship in midwifery provides a sense of how learning in practice takes place and what it means to move coward full participation in a community of practice. A more detailed view of the way in which the fashioning of iden~ity is Lhe means through which members become full partici- pants, and how this subsumes the kind of knowledge and skill usually assumed to be the goal of newcomers' activity. may be found by analyzing the process of becoming a nondrinking alcol~olic through AIcoholics Anonymous (AA).