Active Citizenship and KnowledgeManagement: A Practice-Based Perspective

This paper explores how a practice-based perspective, as developed in Knowledge Management in recent times, might contribute to a more holistic understanding of the concept of active citizenship. Traditionally, views of active citizenship are steeped in Enlightenment ideas and values – that freethinking individual citizens need ready access to high quality information in order to participate in democratic processes and that full participation may involve an oppositional stance. The present paper offers an alternative, critical perspective: one grounded in an understanding of the essentially social nature of people's knowledge practices. This paper adopts a practice-based perspective on Knowledge Management (KM) to develop a more complex understanding of knowledge sharing as a means of exemplifying the skills of active citizenship within the workplace. It draws on empirical findings in a corporate context to illustrate that people’s decision making processes are inextricably linked to their discursive context: the existing knowledge, values, social norms and conventions which underpin their everyday knowledge practices.