FROM COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE TO BOUNDARY CRITIQUE: AN EXTENDED APPROACH

Abstract

In the critical systems thinking (CST) literature, particularly in the theory of boundary critique, the process of marginalisation has been studied mainly taking into account those elements (issues, values, and agents) that are not fully included or excluded of a social design (Midgley, 2000). Taking this theory into account, this paper presents an extension of the theory of boundary critique by using elements of the social learning theory proposed by Wenger’s (1998, 2000, 2010b): Communities of Practice (CoP).  In doing so, the proposal includes the idea of considering the marginalisation process as one described by different forms of participation and non-participation that build the participants identity and their concerns. To achieve this, this paper is organised as follows. The first section presents the main aspects of the CST research approach and the systemic intervention bases to establish the context of the discussions about marginalisation process. The second section presents the main aspects of the CoP framework. The third section presents the proposal of an extended version of the marginalisation process, applying some CoP concepts. We conclude by presenting a practical example of implementation of this extended approach and discussing the implications of this approach for CST research.