Re: institutions, collaborations
Kathryn Crawford (k.crawford who-is-at edfac.usyd.edu.au)
Fri, 5 Jul 1996 15:54:46 +1000
I have been most struck by the discussion of Jay and Eugene about "open
communities". In my work at the moment I am struggling to support and
maintain an open community of multidisciplinary researchers and colleagues
as a means to make/support change in very established and rigid
institutional settings. My experience suggests that maybe we have always
underestimated the extent that most communities are open and blurry about
the edges and that if respect and practice are made central to membership
then open communities seem to flourish in a liminal and very fluid and
ephemoral way within the cracks of the more stable institutional structures
Etienne Wenger (in press) describes the multiplicity of communities to
which people can and do belong in his communities of practice. I am coming
to the conclusion that the major challenge is to maintain the fluidity
rather than to institutionalise the new forms.
Kate