Introduction

Expert work has become an object of increasing attention among cognitive scientists (e.g., Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988; Ericsson & Smith, 1991). This research tends to view expertise in a social and cultural vacuum. More specifically, the following three dominant underlying ideas may be identified in mainstream cognitive research on expertise (see Engeström, 1989, 1992). First, expertise in a given field is seen as universal and invariant; differences are noticed in the degree of expertise, but differences in content and quality are largely overlooked. Second, expertise is viewed as consisting of individual mastery of discrete tasks and skills; the broader collaborative practice in which individuals are embedded is overlooked. And third, the development of expertise is seen as consisting of gradual accumulation of individual experience under the guidance of established masters; the reconceptualization of existing practice and collective generation of new models is overlooked.

On the other hand, social scientists have identified broad structural forms of the social organization of expertise; professionalism, bureaucracy, and corporatization. These pervasive forms are commonly depicted as structures that leave little room for construction from below. In a way, the lack of social context in cognitive analyses of expertise is complemented by a lack of agency in many social analyses of the organization of expertise.

Attempts to overcome and bridge this dichotomy of individualism and structuralism focus on local socially distributed activities (e.g., Chaiklin & Lave, 1993; Lave, 1988; Middleton & Edwards, 1990). In this chapter, I will present another attempt to transcend the dichotomy.