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Journal ArticleDOI

Knowledge Distribution, Embodiment, and Insulation*

Mike Reay
- 01 Mar 2010 - 
- Vol. 28, Iss: 1, pp 91-107
TLDR
The authors look at how parts of a social stock of knowledge can become insulated from each other via their uneven distribution both "horizontally" across time and space, and "vertically" with respect to degrees of embodiment in unconscious habits and routines.
Abstract
This article looks at how parts of a social stock of knowledge can become insulated from each other via their uneven distribution both "horizontally" across time and space, and "vertically" with respect to degrees of embodiment in unconscious habits and routines. It uses ideas from Alfred Schutz, Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Michael Polanyi, and others to argue that this insulation can produce a highly dynamic structuring of knowledge, awareness of which has the potential to help explain the existence of ignorance, misperception, and multiple interpretations in different social settings. This potential is illustrated with examples taken from a study of American economists, showing how an approach considering insulation can improve understanding of at least one currently influential branch of knowledge. The article also suggests briefly how such an approach might augment recent theories of habitual action by accounting for both stability and change, and even help with some longstanding epistemological problems in social theory.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Outsiders Studies in the Sociology of Deviance.

TL;DR: In the 1966 paperback edition of a publication which first appeared in 1963 has by now been widely reviewed as a worthy contribution to the sociological study of deviant behavior as discussed by the authors, and the authors developed a sequential model of deviance relying on the concept of career, a concept originally developed in studies of occupations.
Journal ArticleDOI

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

TL;DR: Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
Book

The Reality of Social Construction

TL;DR: In this article, social ontology is used to describe cultures, classes, and classes in the context of social ontologies, and knowledge is used as a criterion for knowledge in the social Ontology.
Journal ArticleDOI

Binding significance to form: Cultural objects, neural binding, and cultural change

TL;DR: In cognitive neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, this is known as the binding problem as mentioned in this paper, which is an attempt to stabilize meaning in two ways: the first, innovating, is implicated in the emergence of a cultural object and the second, indexicalizing, in its maintenance and extension.
References
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Book

Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation

TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Book

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

TL;DR: In this article, a social critic of the judgement of taste is presented, and a "vulgar" critic of 'pure' criticiques is proposed to counter this critique.
Journal ArticleDOI

A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge creating processes, arguing that organizational knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge.
Book

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality, focusing particularly on that common-sense knowledge which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society.
Book

The Tacit Dimension

TL;DR: The Tacit Dimension, originally published in 1967, argues that such tacit knowledge - tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments - is a crucial part of scientific knowledge.