Workplace Learning on Dairy Farms: Contemplating the Notion of a Multi-Actant Community of Practice

This paper discusses whether the framework of communities of practice can be used to describe and analyse processes of workplace learning and work routinisation in an environment where human beings are physically absent most of the time. The communities of practice framework is typically used to capture processes of workplace learning among human beings, with a joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire as defining characteristics. Inspired by the insights from a linguistic-ethnographic study of human-machine interactions in a metal foundry, the paper contemplates the notion of a multi-actant community of practice in the context of two dairy farms, composed of farmers, cows, robots, and various other non-human actants. First, the paper finds evidence of mutual engagement between different actants (such as cows and robots), leading to routinised work practices. It also finds evidence of shared repertoires, which create shortcuts in these practices. Reminiscent of previous observations in the foundry, one salient artefact in the dairy farms can be interpreted as sound symbolism. The paper further finds that different actants on the farms function as ‘experts’ and ‘newcomers.’ Finally, regarding the identification of a joint enterprise, the paper finds that it is more difficult to speak of a genuine ‘community’, as different actants have different interests and reasons for their mutual engagement. At the same time, this conceptual puzzle opens an urgent academic and societal discussion on perspectivity in multi-actant work environments, of which a dairy farm is but one example.