Re: Boundary object

Leigh Star (s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu)
Wed, 29 Oct 1997 15:29:23 -0700

Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:27:11 -0700
>To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>From: Leigh Star <s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: some thoughts on boundary objects
>Cc:
>Bcc:
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>
>Dear Friends, I too have been (with Jay, Susan Newman, Jean Lave, Naoki
>Ueno, Carol Berkenkotter, Yrjo Engestrom and many other xmcaers) at the
>Sociology of Science meetings. So forgive my not coming in sooner to this
>very valuable discussion.
>
>When I first wrote about boundary objects in 1989, the purpose was to
>answer a specific set of questions: how do social worlds (or communities
>of practice) intersect? How do people cooperate over a period of time
>when they are sharing an object, but have different defintions of it, and
>different uses for it? How does the simultaneous "sameness" and
>"difference" of the object play out materially, and in specific work
>situations?
>
>Since then I have many times been asked "what is NOT a boundary object"?
>The questions usually comes from what Yrjo quite rightly terms theoretical
>bloating. There are two parts of the contribution of the boundary object
>notion, both equally important. The first is the ambiguity of objects,
>that is how they may take on different attributes in different contexts of
>use. The second is the way in which they meet specific constraints,
>needs, or features of the worlds in which they are used. Because I was
>looking at problem-solving, I emphasized knowledge or informational needs.
>I looked at issues such as differing time horizons between social worlds,
>different units of analysis, different approaches to abstract vs. concrete.
>
>I've always thought that a concept like boundary object should be
>evaluated not for its essential qualities, but for the circumstances in
>which it is most analytically useful. For me, it is most useful at a
>middle level of scale, to explain arrangements made between communities
>over a reasonably long period of time. That is, it is not particularly
>useful to call an ephemeral event (as you have been fruitfully discussing
>here), a once-spoken sentence, or a very large phenomenon (like the
>Holocaust or world peace) a boundary object. Each has some of the
>features, but perhaps may contribute more confusion that it's worth.
>
>The conceptual background to some of these issues is in the social worlds
>literature. I can provide references for anyone interested.
>
>The most difficult thing for me to sort out, and what I've been working on
>with respect to boundary object in the last few years, are two sets of
>questions:
>
>1. What is the relationship of boundary objects to standards and formal
>classification systems?
>
>2. How can we conceive of people's memberships and the "memberships" of
>objects within social worlds, and what is the relationship between the two.
>
>Geof Bowker and I have been working on a book which will be done in
>January that I think -- I hope -- has some glimmers about these difficult
>questions. It's called How Classifications Work, and will be published by
>MIT Press. I would be happy to share parts of it on the MCA web page, or
>to post brief exerpts to xmca if folks are interested.
>
>Thanks for prompting me to write this down!
>
>Leigh
>

********

Susan Leigh Star
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
501 East Daniel St. University of Illnois
Champaign, IL 61820 USA s-star1 who-is-at uiuc.edu