Knowledge communities

Hracs, Brian and Pinch, Steven (2020) Knowledge communities. In, Kobayashi, Audrey (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd Edition. Second ed. Elsevier, pp. 17-22. (doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-102295-5.10663-8).

Abstract

A knowledge community is a group of people, typically a professional, technical, scientific, or creative group, unified by a common set of values, norms, and working practices, producing knowledge for a given purpose. The concept draws upon recent work on the sociology of scientific knowledge, which argues that knowledge is a product of a context-dependent social process. It is related to the concept of a community of practice but involves less direct contact between the members of the group concerned. Knowledge communities have been used to explain features of the emerging space economy, but especially the continuing dynamism of industrial agglomerations (i.e., urban and regional grouping of firms, often in the same sector). There is a lively debate in human geography over the extent to which knowledge communities, and the knowledge they generate, can be traced to, and confined within, bounded spaces such as neighborhoods, cities, regions, and nations. With the development of modern telecommunications systems, including video conferencing and social media platforms, many would argue that knowledge communities and their activities are spread throughout the world in extensive networks. Yet, others assert that certain types of knowledge are socially embedded in particular places and are difficult to transfer.

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Contributors

Author: Brian Hracs

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