The Relationship between Individual Subjects and the “Community of Practice”

We can define as “optimal” any kind of relationship between individual subjects and collective subjects characterised by the capacity of the former, on the one hand, to adhere to the contexts in which they operate, to “read them” and understand them, actively contributing to pursuing their aims, and on the other, to critically analyse them and perceive them as dynamic, processual “places”, stratified, subjected to different rhythms of change due both to the spontaneous dynamics of internal practices and relations, and to the needs for change that spring from the relationship with the external environment. In such a case each of the single components of communities and organisations appears to be distinguished by the aptitude not only to place themselves in an non-problematic way within the latter, but also to critically focus on their personal experience within these spheres, assessing the problems that arise from them and singling out the means and instruments necessary to face and solve them.