Page - (000053) - in Knowledge and Networks

43 complex terrain of sedimented exclusions. 22 Placing appropriate computer hardware and software in such communities at central-access locations would be ineffective without also seeking out and connecting with local gatekeepers as well as would-be gatekeepers across multiple community groups engaged in a wide range of activi- ties. 23 While incorporating new members into a community of practice requires sig- nifi cant effort (de Vreede et al., 2007 ), the challenges are multiplied when new members come from previously excluded communities. The role of mediators entails coordinating, connecting, facilitating, and indeed empowering (Obstfeld, 2005 ). 24 To avoid the pitfalls of top-down programs, it would be especially helpful if lead- ers of fi eld research were recruited from within excluded neighborhoods (Kindon, Pain, & Kesby, 2007 ). An important part of the fi eld research in these contexts entails assisting people who have been undervalued and might otherwise self-select out of opportunities to recognize and draw upon their strengths. Jenny Cameron and Katherine Gibson ( 2004 ) carried out precisely this type of fi eld work in Australia, where they sought out people in communities devastated by industrial restructuring; crucially, these researchers recognized that the devastation was as much subjective as a matter of objectifi ed conditions. Using fi eld strategies such as focus groups, they helped people develop new subjectivities, based on recognition of their skills and talents despite exclusion from the market. In mediated crowdsourced project work, fi eld research also must entail a constructive way to screen and evaluate expertise that would have to depart from existing techniques such as competitions (Howe, 2008 ; Lampel, Jha, & Bhalla, 2012 ; Villarroel, Taylor, & Tucci, 2013 ), which are win-lose propositions and incompatible with the objectives I have laid out. Face-to-face focus groups may be at least one viable alternative (Schweitzer, Buchinger, Gassmann, & Obrist, 2012 ). Admittedly, the task is huge, encompassing fi eld research , continual classifi cation of seeker problems in connection with appro- 22 Although formal education often is used as a proxy measure for skill, this measure misses the variety of avenues by which people develop skills and knowledges. This much has been recognized by the business world, which has recognized that many educational systems around the world lack appropriate training for many workplaces. In response, training increasingly is linked to continu- ous learning in ongoing on-the-job training (Marković, 2008 ). Accordingly, many fi rms develop rigorous recruitment and selection criteria based on apparent intelligence, sense of responsibility, ambition, and the like and subsequently train workers themselves rather than rely on educational institutions. 23 I include legal as well as illegal activity here. Regarding the latter, the view here is that illegal activity is most fruitfully engaged by providing new opportunities and practices, not by imprison- ing and more generally constraining people who have been subjected to institutionalize discrimi- nation—a system that has been shown to multiply existing problems. The view overall is consistent with Foucault’s point that arriving at new truths requires the development of new practices, as opposed to proselytizing ( 1980 , p. 133) or repression, which produces rather than eliminates actions on a targeted population (Foucault, 1976/ 1990 ). 24 Obstfeld ( 2005 ) countered Burt’s ( 1992 ) tertius gaudens (the third party that profi ts and plays one party off another) with tertius iungens (the third party that joins, unites, facilitates, connects, creates). 2 Reversing the Instrumentality of the Social for the Economic