Wenger’s ideas about participation and reification (full table)
These notes are part of a series for the book.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
| Chapter | Characteristic | Participation | Reification |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Each helps the other | Helps reification: ambassadors sent with treaties; meetings introduce policies to help clarify them; customer service call centers go with documentation; judges interpret laws. | Helps participation: notes remind us of decisions made; meeting times are coordinated with clocks; monuments remind us of the dead. |
| 1 | They have to be in balance; if you increase one, you usually have to increase both | If there is too much, nothing documents what was agreed and learned. | If there is too much, there isn't be enough participation to generate meaning. |
| 1 | Help with remembering and forgetting | Provides us with memories which we interpret as part of our identity and it too is malleable as our perspectives change over time. | Allows for multiple interprestations and reinterpretations over time. |
| 3 | You become invested in it when part of a community of practice | The participation of the members -- it is a shared history. This brings together identities, but also makes it hard to dramatically change who you are (because there is no community support). | Wenger cites the Imperial measurement system and QWERTY keyboards as examples of our resistance to change reifications we are invested in. |
| 3 | Discontinuities happen when they come and go in a community of practice | As people come and go, enter and leave a COP, there are discontinuities in the relative positions of its members (newcomers and old-timers). | Reifications also can come and go, causing discontinuities (for example, when old tools are replaced with new ones). |
| 3 | Members can use them to shape a community of practice (either to keep it the same or to bring change to it) | Seeking, cultivating, or avoiding certain relationships | Producing or promoting certain artifacts |
| 3 | They can be political | Nepotism, discrimination, influence, friendship, charisma | Policies plans, contracts, designs |
| 3 | They can be important tools for shifting actions and attitudes within communities of practice. Usually you need both to control practice. | For example, manager participation | For example, policies |
| 4 | They can create connections across boundaries | Brokering is a connection made by people who can bring parts of a practice from one COP to another. Being a bridge between two COPs may even be a primary activity (for example, of a manager) Complementary connections is different than brokering. It is crossing boundaries through acquaintances with people in other COPs, like neighbors, spouses, and friends. | Boundary objects are a type of connection in which a reification is used by multiple COPs to organize their interconnections. |
| 9 | They intersect with identification | Identification, which is part of the process of forming identity, is a participation in the process of identifying with a category or role. | Identification, which is part of the process of forming identity, is a participation in the process of identifying with a category or role. |
| 10 | They are one of the four dimensions for learning design | Make sure the right people are available during learning. | Provide some of the right artifacts (such as curricula and procedures). |