Page - (000044) - in Knowledge and Networks

34 understanding developed through socialization); embedded knowledge (subjective knowledge embedded in a context), and encoded knowledge (knowledge that can be presented in manuals, books, websites, and the like). The addition of social knowl- edges to existing typologies rests on the recognition of problems of social interaction. In an inclusive framework, exclusions wrought of segregation require attention. Problematizing the Social: Conceptualizing Exclusion in Relation to Social Knowledges Constructing networks among people who might otherwise not interact due to membership in different affi nity groups (by class, race, ethnicity, gender, and the like) is fraught with problems in light of people’s life experience in a hyper- segregated world. Although segregation commonly is viewed in the context of resi- dential areas and school districts, occupational segregation also is well documented. Further, the management literature has documented frictions of difference within occupations in both material and virtual workplaces, as well as tendencies for peo- ple to want to work with people similar to themselves (e.g., Brown, Jenkins, & Thatcher, 2012 ; Joshi, 2006 ). Electronic workplaces in association with e-collabo- ration have been shown to embed implicit sociolinguistic biases regarding gender (Gefen, Geri, & Paravastu, 2007 ); moreover, different modes of e-communication have been shown to foster or inhibit constructive social relations in the context of diverse participants (Brown et al., 2012 ). Difference matters, consistent with geog- rapher Mark Graham’s ( 2011a ) more general point that virtual space embeds biases relative to the range of axes of difference that exist in material space, while also creating new axes of difference. Recognizing persistent problems of difference departs from various sanguine views, such as the notion that activity in virtual space portends a more democratic future (e.g., see critical reviews by Graham, 2011b ; Etling, Faris, & Palfrey, 2010 ), or that convivial interaction among diverse groups signifi es the dissolution of frictions of difference, despite the superfi ciality of inter- action (Gilroy, 2004 , 2005 ). Segregation along any of many or a combination of axes of difference contrib- utes to the increasingly polarized nature of our world because it blocks access to information and opportunity to groups that lack resources, and moreover, it renders those without access out-of-sight and out-of mind (Young, 2000 ). Drawing from the theory of communicative action (Habermas, 1984 ), we can understand segregation in terms of the absence of communication among different groups via the construc- tion of invisible and sometimes visible walls among groups, which then generate misinformation and the production of homogenizing and typically derogatory ste- reotypes. Misinformation in turn produces fear and discriminatory practices, which reinforce segregationist tendencies. If segregation is understood as the socio-spatial production of ignorance, whether on the ground or virtually, then the task is to dissolve ignorance by developing new N. Ettlinger