Jewson, N. (2007). Chapter 6: Cultivating network analysis: Rethinking the concept of ‘community’ within ‘communities of practice.’ In Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives (pp. 68–82). Abingdon: Routledge.
By Nick Jewson
May 11, 2020
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Lave and Wenger contributed to academic studies in management by situating “learning within and through active engagement in processes of negotiation, belonging and transition within particular social situations.”
- Wenger’s theories can be frustrating because his concepts are “slippery and elusive”
- Areas that lack explanation in Wenger’s theories:
- Processes of disagreement, conflict and struggle, other than as tensions between newcomers and old-timers.
- Processes of exclusion, discrimination and oppression.
- Sources of innovation, the emphasis being on the transmission of existing practices.
- The full range of learning trajectories, the emphasis being solely on the absorption of newcomers into positions of authority.
- The social and spatial boundaries of communities of practice, resulting in inflation of the concept to include more and more types of social situations.
- Power differentials and struggles within and between communities of practice.
- Broader historical and cultural contexts of communities of practice.
The concept of “community”
- The word “community” is used in everyday language in many different ways
- The word is often used to describe “harmony, co-operation, unity and altruistic care for others”
- The word also carries reference to times when “social bonds were supposedly more local, simple, warm and face-to-face”
- Thus, “community” is influenced by multiple dimensions as a “sociological concept, popular mythology and social policy principle”
- Meanings across these dimensions can “contaminate” each other
- Wenger and Lave need to define what community means in the academic context, but they fail to do so, which led to conflicts in interpretation and usage
- Wenger uses this term is a positivistic way, and yet fails to clearly describe what it is
- “Wenger’s notion of community is wrapped around his exposition of identity: ‘Building an identity consists of negotiating the meanings of our experience of membership in social communities’” (1998: 145)
- Wenger’s definition of community is closely tied to the process of identity development
- A community is formed by “the negotiation of identities”
- Identity is social because it is formed through interaction with others
- Cohen built on-top of Wenger’s concepts by arguing that “communities are essentially imagined entities… forged in and through symbols and rituals”
- This interpretation also excludes notions of “the potential for violence, conflict, discrimination and persecution inherent in the formation of relationships between insiders and outsiders, ‘own’ and ‘other’”
- This also lacks describing boundaries within the group
- This concept describes communities as exclusive groups shaped by rituals and culture, which is tangent to ideas of clan-based, tribal, and rural societies than contemporary urban societies
- The author believes qualitative research methods must be used to conduct empirical research in this field
- Wenger does not incorporate in his theory that conflict, competition and rivalry can also count as participation in communities
An alternative approach: network analysis
- Network theory: “Network theories examine relationships, bonds and interdependences between people, groups and institutions.”
- “The concept of power is integral to network models of social relations”; Wenger’s theory excludes concepts of power
- Power is always two-ways; it is a quality of network, not a force commanded by individuals
- Power; Everyone has a degree of influence on others
- Ex. slaves have power over masters, novices over old-timers
- “It is a result of the organization of people and things in networks of relations that some can dominate more effectively than others.”
- Network analysis can also be analyzed through quantitative methods
- Concepts within network analysis:
- Stars and bridges
- Centralized and decentralized networks
- Clusters and cliques
- Network density
- Network boundaries
- Learning trajectories
Stars and bridges
- Everyone has a strategic location within a network
- Strategic powers are determined by frequency of contact, friendship choices, financial links
- Those with many networks with others are ‘stars’
- Those on the periphery of networks with few links (‘isolates’) are also important as they can be the first to contact with outsiders and members of other networks
- Individuals that link clusters are ‘bridges’—they “may also be important sources of innovation, since their structural position enables them to transmit and translate ideas from one context to another”—I wonder if UX designers are bridges between engineers, visual designers, clients, etc…
Centralized and decentralized networks
- Centralized networks are (like the typical) web-shaped connections
- Are more likely to have set standards of behaviour and work protocol
- Are more likely to have a established hierarchies within the network
- Stronger facilitation, surveillance, and monitoring
- Decentralized networks are lattice-shaped and polycentric
- Have fewer centres of global centrality
- Communication travels through various channels and are hard to regulate
- Open to clash of opinions and harder to censor
- They have different constraints, opportunities, power… etc.
- Thus, communities must be analyzed by their central/decentral structure, because that plays a large role in the way identities and relationships are formed
- The impact of the centralization or decentralization is also influenced by the size of the network
- Large central vs. small central has big impact on how one can reach someone with the highest seniority; it may feel opaque and remote in a large network
- Large decentral vs. small decentral may have differences in direct to indirect communication
Clusters and cliques
- The author does not clarify what cluster/cliques mean
- Clusters and cliques can be found within networks; clusters within clusters also exist
- Clusters and cliques don’t dominate the network, but can each have a centralized structure; I have to be attentive to know the differences between the whole community/network vs. clusters/cliques within them
- UX designers may be clusters within the organization, not a CoP
- Bridges between the clusters/cliques are important to examine to understand the network
- Clusters are composed of members that believe they have more common interests than other members of the network
- Clusters can have subcultures that are different from the network’s dominant norms and values
Network density
- “Density refers to the completeness of a network, or ‘the extent to which all possible relations are present’ (Scott 2000: 32).”
- High density:
- Members are directly linked to each other
- Connections exist despite members not knowing each other
- There is pressure on members to conform their attitude, behaviour and emotions; identity is collective and harmonious; members are expected to confirm
- Sense of surveillance is strong
- Low density:
- Members are linked indirectly through second, third, nth parties; “connected through intermediaries”
- Not all individuals are aware of each other
- Sense of identity is individualistic; formed through personal achievements, personal ties with others
- Members choose to be part of the network
- High and low network densities each influence a community’s “participation, emergent identification and legitimate peripheral practice” differently; one is not necessarily better than the other
- CoPs should be not be limited to only high-density networks; they “are often inward-looking, defensive and resistant to change”
- Thus, in order for a community to be proactively innovative, it needs low-density social bonds
- Cross-contact with members in low-densities are limited, and this is not effective in advanced industrial societies
Network boundaries
- Criticism: Wenger’s description of boundaries and peripheries is used as a metaphor without concrete explanation
- The above concepts on centrality, centralization, cliques, clusters, bridges and density are concrete ways to articulate and understand the boundaries of a community
- Network analysis can also be used to identify the methods of points of entry and exit in networks
- Lave and Wenger only use the interaction between new and old-timers to describe the internal boundaries within CoPs
- Network theory is able to analyze the complex internal boundaries within CoPs
- It is more important to understand CoPs by their internal structures than comparing the external structures of multiple communities
- Perhaps I will have to focus on one particular CoP for UX designers to unpack its internal structure
- Douglas (1970) “draws out the contrasting sensibilities associated with different combinations of group and grid boundaries.”
- Ex. strong group + weak grid boundaries = cult / sect
- Ex. strong group + strong grid boundaries = church organization
- “The crucial point here is that boundary dispositions defined by network connections generate strikingly different ethical beliefs, material world views, modes of behaviour and patterns of learning. Network analysis points to the many different relational forms that may comprise communities of practice.”
- I may have to follow the concepts of network analysis more closely than Wenger’s theory on CoPs as it seems more suitable for exploratory research
Learning trajectories
- Again, Lave and Wenger only focus on a newcomer’s development to becoming an old-timer when describing the concept of learning trajectories; they remain largely metaphorical to explain this concept
- Criticism: “Their conceptualization of community does not provide them with the intellectual tools necessary systematically to analyse the organization of communities of practice.”
- Using the concepts of network theory mentioned above, it is possible to identify members with greater nuance than just rookie, novice, old-timer:
- Ex. bridges, stars, isolates, mediators, gatekeepers
- Each position has its own strategic power which shapes the overall learning trajectory
- The form of the network determines which positions are needed and therefore which powers will conduct its learning trajectory
- Overall, communities cannot be seen as good and bad; they are all intrinsically unique for various reasons
Conclusion:
“However, it is the contention of this chapter that network theories enable us to specify and analyse structural aspects of small group relationships, rather than simply describe them, and build greater complexity into our theories without losing analytical purchase.”
