Communities of Practice Learning, Meaning, and Identity

Being alive as human beings means that we are constantly engaged in the pursuit of enterprises of all kinds, from ensuring our physical survival to seeking the most lofty pleasures. As we define these enterprises and engage in their pursuit together, we interact with each other and with the world and we tune our relations with each other and with the world accordingly. In other words, we learn.

Over time, this collective learning results in practices that reflect both the pursuit of our enterprises and the attendant social relations. These practices are thus the property of a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. It makes sense, therefore, to call these kinds of communities communities of practice.

Claims processors: a community of practice

Ariel and her colleagues do not come to Alinsu to form a community of practice; they come to earn a living. Gathered in Alinsu's office by their need for work, they want to fulfill their individual production quota. They want to make money in order to go on with their own lives, which they see taking place mostly outside of the office. They do focus on their work, but they keep glancing at the clock, waiting for the moment they are free to leave. For most of the time they spend at Alinsu, most of them would rather be somewhere else doing something else. Everyone knows this, employees and employer alike.