Duality (CoPs)

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In a community of practice, duality refers to a tension between two forces which become a driving force for change and creativity. Wenger uses the concept of dualities to examine the forces that create and sustain a community of practice.^[2] He describes a duality as "a single conceptual unit that is formed by two inseparable and mutually constitutive elements whose inherent tensions and complementarity give the concept richness and dynamism".^[2]

Some compare the concept of a duality to that of yin and yang, i.e. two mutually defining opposites.^{[citation needed]}

The term "duality" implies dynamic, continual change and mutual adjustment as the tensions that are inherent in dualities can be both creative and constraining. Four dualities emerge in communities of practice: participation–reification, designed–emergent, identification–negotiability and local–global.^[2]