Domain

An assemblage of knowledge, materials, tools or experiences that are associated with the people who wield them. Groups of people who share similar associations may constitute specialist research communities. Belonging to a research community entails adherence to and reproduction of established legitimate practices, language and sensibilities, which emerge out of the circumstantial constraints to produce legitimate knowledge using the particular kinds of knowledge, materials, tools and experiences that distinguish the domain as a distinct field of practice. Association with a domain also entails embodied experiences that are somewhat tangential to the actual practices that characterize the domain. Membership is expressed by adorning symbols, wearing certain styles of clothing, using certain styles of language and means of communication, association with certain domain-specific tools or objects in social or non-work contexts, or participation in shared memory or nostalgia. The expectation to perform membership in these ways has implications regarding the domains' openness to diversity, since certain expressions used to signify belonging may be strongly associated with broader societal norms pertaining to particular subsets of the population, and those individuals would be able to enact these behaviours more easily or in ways that are deemed more genuine.