Networks and communities developing practice

As discussed earlier (see section 1.3.2), a development in professional and academic understanding is taking place in networks of actors, projects, and communities. In this process, the interaction is constrained by the institutional and social structures, as well as by the instruments and tools in use and the sequencing of the activity. Overall, these aspects become a focus in various theories, elements of which are drawn on to guide the assessment in this study.

Actors and networks developing meanings of things

The cultural-historical activity theory emerged based on the contrast between intentional and instrumental, circumstantial action. In CHAT, subjects orient their activity toward an object, supported by instruments and tools that are material (or conceptual) artifacts. In this process, the activities and meanings connected to the artifacts are mediated and transformed through a process of internalization and externalization. Besides a theoretical approach, CHAT is considered a “framework aimed at transcending the dichotomies of micro- and macro-, mental and

material, [and] observation and intervention in analysis and redesign of work”

(Engeström, 2000, p. 960). Due to its connections to structured, collaborative mediation on meanings and action, it fits well into the study of organizational development and learning.

Another theory into artifact-mediated action, actor-network theory (ANT; Latour &

Woolgar, 1979), is an approach to tackle the complexities of studying technology and science, and their development and assessment in complex contemporary systems. In the ANT view, concepts are mediated and translated (resembling the CHAT internalization) from materials and inscribed (externalization in CHAT) into new materials that act in guiding the new interaction. According to Lopes (2011, p. 314), the ANT concept of inscription refers to “the way technical artefacts embody patterns of use,” translation to “stability and social order” that are

“continually negotiated as a social process of aligning interests” and

punctualizations as “black boxes⁴⁴ […] used to deal with bounded rationality.”

Similar interaction is also described in the CHAT approach, although CHAT emphasizes the distinction between material objects and human actors.

In sociology, the term “boundary object”⁴⁵ refers to a concept or an artifact of information (i.e., sample of data) that is shared by several experts and that is used in collaboration within a specific project or area of interest. In interprofessional integration, disciplinary practices, concepts, and theories may be “influential sources of interaction” (Klein, 2000, p. 112). When approaching the “edge of knowing,” two different perspectives meet, and as a new perspective is introduced to a familiar issue, the “frameworks through which one views and interprets experience” must change (Beard & Mälkki, 2013, p. 29). The change in

perspective involves “a struggle at the liminal space” or at the “in-between zone

44 The term “black box” refers to artifacts (technical objects) that operate as expected while simul-taneously hiding the complexities that constitute them.

45 Boundary object as a term was introduced by Star and Griesmer (1989), and has since been used to explain interactions in interprofessional collaboration (Klein, 2000, p. 12).

between the old and the new conceptions” (Beard & Mälkki, 2013, p. 29; see also Mälkki & Green, 2013). Such change also denotes “epistemic development”

(Beard & Mälkki, 2013, p. 30). At the edge of knowing — or at epistemic boundaries — our “beliefs, attitudes, values, shared assumptions, sources of acceptance, relationships, and a sense of understanding the world” (Beard &

Mälkki, 2013, p. 30) become involved in the inquiry.

Successful boundary crossing and the resulting transformation in (conceptual and material) artifacts and in translations of hybrid knowledge lead to “negotiated knotworking” between the participants (Engeström & Sannino, 2010, p. 13), developing new materials (Shove et al., 2012) on which the future interaction can build. Hence, well-functioning processes of epistemic translation can be key to the renewal of knowledge fields (Bruun, 2000; Marttila & Kohtala, 2014).

Communities developing practice

In assessing disciplinarity, it is expressed not only in the academic context but also in professional practice performed by various communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). In CoP groups, four characteristics can be identified: the members interact with each other both “in formal and informal settings,” “share knowledge with each other,” and “collaborate with each other to create new knowledge,” and their group fosters “the development of a shared-identity”

among members (Li et al., 2009, p. 2). Wenger (1998, pp. 72–73) describes how

“mutual engagement,” “joint enterprise,” and “shared repertoire” are the three relations by which practice “is the source of a coherence” for a community of practice. Such communities range from “voluntary informal networks to work-supported formal education sessions, and from apprentice training to

multidisciplinary, multi-site project teams” (Li et al., 2009, p. 2).

Social relations cause persons and practices to “change, re-produce, and transform each other” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 68). In their book The Dynamics of Social Practice (2012), Shove, Panzar, and Watson focus on the dynamic aspects of social practice and the way practices change. According to Shove et al.

(2012, p. 24), practices consist of “active integrations of material, competence and meaning.” When competences and materials develop, meanings also transform (p. 33). A change in practice can be induced through “processes of integration” (p. 43) and persistence in the circulation of its elements. This process involves the “packing and unpacking” of these elements and their

interdependencies (p. 56). As the elements discussed by Shove et al. (2012) are

“linked together to form recognizable practices,” practices also link together to form “bundles and complexes” that are either “loose-knit patterns based on the co-location and co-existence” or “more integrated combinations” (p. 81).

Whereas CoPs are often perceived to form “homogenous design communities”

(Fischer, 2001, p. 3), a community of interest (CoI) connects a more

heterogeneous group of interested people from various contexts to discuss “a particular (design) problem of common concern” (Fischer, 2001, p. 4). As such, CoIs can connect several groups and communities of practitioners together a shared interest, connecting various different practices and perspectives into the

collaborative mediation. According to Fischer (2001), in such interaction

challenges emerge “in building a shared understanding of the task at hand” that

“is evolved incrementally and collaboratively and emerges in people’s minds and in external artifacts” (p. 4). CoI members “must learn to communicate with and learn from others who have different perspectives and perhaps a different vocabulary for describing their ideas” (Fischer, 2001, p. 4).

Experts, specialists and laypeople

In interprofessional collaboration, different experts and other professional practitioners restructure their knowledge around a specific problem context.

Depending on the background and persona, the approach to this knowledge differs. Put simply, the specialist values precision and detail while the generalist wants to know a little about a lot of things. These two practitioners may use

“different research methods, develop different concepts and terminology, and have very different ideals or goals for their research activity” (Jamison, 2001, p. 35).

The T-movement explains how in approaching different expert contributors, the T-shaped experts (Madhavan & Grover, 1998) — in contrast to I-shaped

specialists acting vertically from the professional base to practice — have the cognitive capacity to integrate multiple knowledge bases in their own experience, to understand how other knowledge inputs relate to and interact with their own disciplinary knowledge (Madhavan & Grover, 1998, p. 3). The horizontal top of the T in a T-shaped expert thus refers to the ability to bridge various realms of knowledge and knowhow. A-shaped experts (Madhavan & Grover, 1998) are then people who have their feet in two disciplines at once and are therefore capable of fostering the team’s ability to share and integrate knowledge. Hukkinen (2008) suggests the term “hybrid expert” for this role. In comparison with disciplinary specialists (I-shaped), the hybrid experts resemble generalists. In interprofessional collaboration, however, the approaches are complementary rather than opposed (François, 2006): a specialist needs understanding “of his/her place within the scientific and social community,” and a generalist must also have a certain level of understanding regarding the “specific disciplinarian knowledge” to contribute meaningfully (François, 2006, p. 622).

Hukkinen (2008, p. 67) emphasizes that the lay knowledge contributed by real-life (or “real-life-world”) stakeholders is actually expert knowledge on the basis of being socially relevant. The quality of the knowledge is therefore based on a criterion of being socially robust rather than scientifically reliable, and its testing involves “public deliberation” (Hukkinen, 2008, p. 67). Such tacit and emergent knowledge cannot be directly taught, but instead only learned “through

participating personally in a sustained process of solving problems” (Hakkarainen et al., 2004, p. 22). Such knowledge is formed through the collaboration; at the same time, artifacts (i.e., concepts, tools, theories) in collaboration evolve.

According to Klein (2000, p. 18), the view on interdisciplinarity that emerges

“does not deny the value of specialization” or “the inevitability of differentiation,”

but it does “dispute oversimplifications” related to other professionals. Klein

continues that interdisciplinarity and specialization (disciplinarity) are “parallel, mutually reinforcing strategies” and their interplay, if properly supported, can lead to “a productive tension characterized by complexity and hybridity” (2000, p. 7).

Projects as collaborative constellations

Because of the multitude of participating groups and their approaches, and as the interprofessional process is context-dependent and varies from one case to another, it often calls for a problem- and project-based collaborative action. In projects, new understanding is applied in real-world contexts and communicated further to be connected with future inquiries. Project work differs from

conventional professional activity in that it includes the individuals and all the artifacts and norms and rules “indigenous” to that specific project (Blunden, 2009, p. 19). In a project-based collaboration, “the reality of each project is unique” (Bruun et al., 2005, p. 115), and the “implementation and practices […]

vary substantially.” A project is also “always directed towards some ideal”

(Blunden, 2009, p. 19). Hence, if we take the collaborative project as the unit of analysis, then activity becomes an interdisciplinary concept, because through the project it becomes equally available to other domains of science and theory-building (Blunden, 2009). If we open the project to a wider public, it becomes transdisciplinary.

Collaboration in constellations of people and things also varies according to tradition and evolves through experience. Projects are often based on earlier ones, and the institutions, practitioners, and communities involved traverse with them.

As a result, projects are not perceived simply as individual or collaborative enterprises to tackle a given challenge or brief for action, but can be understood in a similar broad sense to when Habermas (1997) discusses the projects of modernity perceived in interplay in everything (project of nation, project of science, etc.). Collaboration, when enacted, constitutes “the definition of 'we' relevant to the given relationship” (Blunden, 2010, p. 10), structuring the way participants can have their say. True collaboration also “always entails an element of dispute of the concept of what is to be attained” and “conflict over how to get there” (Blunden, 2010, p. 10).

A project team differs from a CoP in being tied to a specific goal and being more heterogeneous in relation to knowledge, practices, and roles, but the means of collaboration remain in many ways similar. Furthermore, a project always connects to new projects through participants and content. In contrast to CoPs, this process forms evolving CoIs that focus around a specific topical area of inquiry (Fischer, 2001). In approaching interdisciplinary research and education, a

“dialogue between disciplines” acts as a crucial mechanism, and yet it may well take place outside the “conventional organizational charts” (Bruun et al., 2005, p. 24). There is, then, a “concealed reality” to interdisciplinarity (Bruun et al., 2005, p. 25), evident in aspects that are difficult to institutionalize (e.g., informal networks, subjects, and topics). In this process, collaborative projects provide platforms to learn through collaboration, to connect findings from one disciplinary domain to another, and to implement transdisciplinary meaning-making.