AGORA - tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idéudveksling i ...

AGORA - tidsskrift for forskning,
udvikling og idéudveksling i professioner
reification (described by forms, points of focus, documents, monuments, instruments, projection) (see
figure 1).
Figure 1: The duality of participation and reification (Wenger, 1998, p. 63)
This complementarity or duality of participation and reification is “a fundamental aspect of the
constitution of communities of practice” (ibid., p. 65). Participation and reification are two sides of
the same coin. Participating in a community of practice and negotiating meaning through action and
cooperation, lead to different forms of reification which can be defined as artefacts and phenomena for the
manifestation of culture.
Bruner (1990) also stresses, that meaning-making is a fundamental process that constitutes
culture – a perspective, which – in his view – should be a central position in psychology. In a community
of practice, action and co-operation merge with the process of negotiating meanings. This process of
negotiation can happen verbally in communicative processes and/or by meeting each other in the activity
itself, i.e., by mutual engagement. In this constantly developing process of interaction and cooperation,
people develop a common repertoire of strategies, action patterns, convictions, habits, etc. – all elements
that characterize the emergence of culture.
Communities of practice develop not only in the activity itself, but also through narratives that form
and re-form every single participant, but also the culture of the community itself. A narrative can be
considered as one of the organizing principles for human life (Crossley, 2000). Narratives and stories
knit experiences together, either experiences of a single individual (i.e., the individual life stories) or
experiences from different people being in relation to each other (i.e., stories that configure a group or
culture). In general, narratives both configure the setting and are, at the same time, embedded in the
specific social or cultural context. Narratives structure events, form a timeline and knit different events,
reflections, thoughts and feelings together. Following Polkinghorn (1988), narratives need to have a plot:
“The plot is able to weave together a complex of events to make a single story. ... A plot is constructed
in the realm of meaning, recording relationships among perceptions” (p 18). In that sense, narratives
form an inner drama and establish coherence. By telling stories and forming narratives, our life becomes
meaningful. The narrative process often begins with ones own experiences. Further on, in the cocreation
of narrative in the social realm we tend to hear the other’s stories through the lenses of our own
experience and meaning-making and reflect the meaning-making and stories of the other in the light of
our own meaning-making and stories. But hearing the words of another is an encounter, an interchange
of experiences, feelings, thoughts, where we not only respond to the other, but reflect on our own
experiences, feelings and thoughts. And life is constantly filled with moments and situations where we re-
www.cvustork.dk/agora/ 14