Professions, Proficiency, and Place: An Introduction

Abstract

The 18th volume of the interdisciplinary series on Knowledge and Space looks at how people learn, create and transfer knowledge within and across social groups, such as professions, scholarly disciplines or communities. On the one hand, creating knowledge across social groups is important for innovation, especially for creating more radical and unconventional novelty. On the other hand, social circles often frame what and how its members think and learn, and so erect structural boundaries to innovation. This introductory chapter emphasizes the collective nature and social process of knowledge creation. Moreover, it suggests combining the study of professions and proficiency with a geographical understanding of the place-specificity of those dynamics that finally enable change, learning and cross-fertilization, especially beyond the boundaries of individual professions and communities.