The role of networks of practice and webs of influencers on farmers' engagement with and learning about agricultural innovations

Abstract

Drawing on the UK research project, ‘Farmers’ understandings of GM crops within local communities’, this paper considers the application of the concepts of communities of practice and networks of practice in the agricultural context. A brief review of theories about communities of practice and networks of practice is given and some of our findings are discussed in the context of those theories.

Farmers were found to be a particular type of network of practice, characterised by a weak organisational framework but with a relatively stable network of other communities of practice (or networks of practice) they interact with, which we have called a ‘web of influencers on practice’. Together, farmers’ network of practice and their web of influencers on practice represent the whole environment in which learning may occur, and so provide insights into their social learning system. Most farmers have to work at the boundary of their network of practice and their web of influencers, which creates a significant load on their knowledge management. This is in contrast to other networks of practice where only some members take on this boundary brokering role. The paper concludes that these theories (on networks and communities of practice) provide a useful lens through which to view farmers and their practice, highlighting important points for policy. However, in such contexts these theories need to be extended to include the role of a broader ‘web of influencers on practice’.

Introduction

In recent years there has been a growing interest in communities of practice (CoPs) and networks of practice (NoPs) in connection with informal knowledge gathering, notably in the fields of education and both knowledge management and innovation within organisations, but also in fields such as healthcare and computer science. They have been used both as an analytical framework and as a tool to intervene in organisational management (see, for example, Koliba and Gajda, 2009). Thinking about the processes of learning and knowledge generation in practice originated in the work of social anthropologists at the University of California, particularly the work of Jean Lave and her work on apprenticeships. Although the idea of communities of practice has been around for many years it was first made explicit by Lave and Wenger in their work on apprenticeship and situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Around the same time the notion of networks of practice originated in the work of Brown and Duguid (2001) who applied the term to the relations among groups of people with looser connections than expected in a CoP. Amin and Roberts (2008) note that since the original work by Lave and Wenger, interest in communities of practice has risen exponentially, as evidenced by no publications on the subject in 1990 to over 543 publications in the year 2007 alone.

Although Wenger (1998) developed a theoretical basis for thinking of CoPs, and Brown and Duguid for NoPs, part of the appeal of these concepts is that they may also be viewed from a very practical viewpoint. These concepts are currently being used to think about learning, knowledge generation and situated practice across a variety of settings, attracting the interest and enthusiasm of many professions and practitioners (see Hildreth and Kimble, 2004, Wenger et al., 2002). The interest in these concepts as a practical approach to thinking about ‘real world’ situations, rather than simply being seen as academic devices, is demonstrated by the way that publications on these ideas include not just academic papers, books and monographs but also trade and magazine articles.

Yet Koliba and Gajda (2009) note that more remains to be learned about the way CoPs function and the same may also be said of NoPs. This paper considers the application of theories about communities of practice and particularly networks of practice, to an agricultural setting. Focusing on our research findings on farmers’ influencers and understandings about new technologies, it attempts to reveal ways in which these theories may be useful in thinking about farming practice and ‘real world’ situations that farmers face when implementing new technologies. The paper first discusses some of the literature relating to theories about CoPs and NoPs. Key concepts from these theories that we used to inform our work are then discussed in light of our findings from our research project ‘Farmers’ understandings of GM crops within local communities’. This research used three progressively more interactive phases to explore farmers’ network of practice, their social learning systems and wider influences on practice, particularly in the context of the introduction of GM crops and new agricultural technologies². From our findings we conclude that not enough consideration is given to the impact of the wider context in which CoPs and NoPs are operating.