CHAPTER 4: Boundary

moving from one community of practice to another can demand quite a transformation (103)

Communities of practice cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the world, or understood independently of other practices. (103)

We can participate in multiple communities of practice at once. (105)

BROKERING (an interesting way of thinking about the role of teachers of adult students):

I will call this use of multimembership to transfer some element of one practice into another brokering. (109)

Brokers are able to make new connections across communities of practice, enable coordination, and--if they are good brokers--open new possibilities for meaning. Although we all do some brokering, my experience is that certain individuals seem to thrive on being brokers: they love to create connections and engage in "import--export," and so would rather stay at the boundaries of many practices than move to the core of any one practice. (109)

The job of brokering is complex. It involves processes of translation, coordination, and alignment between perspectives. It requires enough legitimacy to influence the development of a practice, mobilize attention, and address conflicting interests. It also requires the ability to link practices by facilitating transactions between them, and to cause learning by introducing into a practice elements of another. Toward this end, brokering provides a participative connection--not because reification is involved, but because what brokers press into service to connect practices is their experience of multimembership and the possibilities for negotiation inherent in participation. (109)

Peripherality is thus an ambiguous position. Practice can be guarded just as it can be made available; membership can seem a daunting prospect just as it can constitute a welcoming invitation; a community of practice can be a fortress just as it can be an open door. Peripherality can be a position where access to a practice is possible, but it can also be a position where outsiders are kept from moving further inward. (120)