Mind, Culture, and Activity

ISSN: 1074-9039 (Print) 1532-7884 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hmca20

The Experimental Zone of Learning: Mapping the
Dynamics of Everyday Experiment
Masato Fukushima
To cite this article: Masato Fukushima (2017): The Experimental Zone of Learning:
Mapping the Dynamics of Everyday Experiment, Mind, Culture, and Activity, DOI:
10.1080/10749039.2017.1293689
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2017.1293689

Published online: 08 Mar 2017.

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Date: 14 June 2017, At: 03:23

MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2017.1293689

The Experimental Zone of Learning: Mapping the Dynamics ofEveryday Experiment
Masato Fukushima
University of Tokyo
ABSTRACT

Arguments in science and technology studies have prompted us to rethink
the meaning of experimentation in the wider context of our everyday life,
though its dynamics have not been fully analyzed. This article argues thatthe legacy of the sociocultural approach to learning, with special reference
to the Becker-Lave/Wenger dialogue, provides such a clue, and hence
proposes a framework—“experimental zone of learning”—for such purpose.
This zone is the outcome of the dynamic interface between constraints andsociotechnical devices, and this framework enables analysis of the diversityof such conditions, as well as their longitudinal changes through time.

A major leitmotiv in studies on human cognition and learning as mediated by sociocultural
conditions has been criticism of standardized psychological experiments used as measures ofpsychological processes as they occur generally across life settings (Cole, Gay, Glick, & Sharp,
1971; Lave, 1988). Critical reflection on the ecological validity of research on the issue has coevolved
with researchers’ efforts to go beyond artificially created settings to include analysis of the constraints that are present in a wide variety of out-of-school (in the case of youth) and adult-dominatedsettings ranging from the study of schooling, literacy and apprenticeship in West Africa (Lave &Wenger, 1991; Scribner & Cole, 1981), street mathematics in a global context (Nunes, Schliemann, &Carraher, 1993), and diverse modern workplaces and other settings (Chaiklin & Lave, 1993;
Engestrom & Middleton, 1996), to name only a few. Not only have these efforts clarified the diverse
way that our sociocultural condition mediates the very construction of our cognition and learning,but they have also highlighted the specific situation of such experimental practices in laboratory
settings (Cole, 1996; Lave, 1988).
It is the thesis of this article that these efforts can be substantially enriched by considering the
rapid growth of empirical research on technoscience itself in the science and technology studies(STS) of recent years. Detailed examinations of the actual process of experimenting at the laboratorylevel (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Lynch, 1985)—called “laboratory studies”—have contributed totransforming the image of the experiment from simply finding proof for a theoretical prediction
in a rigorously controlled manner to something that plays a diverse and creative role in producing
scientific facts. Previous reexaminations of past cases have also demonstrated its multiple roles incontexts like public demonstration as well (Gooding, Pinch, & Shaffer, 1989). In addition, both
Hacking (1983) and Galison (1997) went even further to highlight the leading role of experimenting
in producing new scientific knowledge often ahead of theoretical prediction.
In addition, Latour’s (1983) claim concerning the way laboratories exert power to change thesociety as a whole has prompted researchers to view the laboratory in a wider social context, leading
to claims that blur the boundary of experiments in and out of the ivory tower laboratory. Gieryn(2006), for instance, reexamined the Chicago School’s sociological perspective of the city as the
CONTACT Masato Fukushima
maxiomjp@yahoo.co.jp
Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8902, Japan.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba,

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M. FUKUSHIMA

continuum of specific field sites and a sort of social laboratory. Krohn and Weyer (1994) claimed
that what they call the “real life experiment” is now required because some high-tech experiments gobeyond the capacity of the individual laboratory in academia. The growing importance of being
experimental beyond laboratory settings under strict control—where the experimentation isextended into various sectors of our society—has been reported, ranging from the introduction of
new technology into society (Levidow & Carr, 2007) to large-scale policymaking (Sabel & Zeitlin,2010). In summarizing these trends, Gross (2015) claimed that such social experiments in real-lifesituations have actually preceded those in the laboratory setting, not vice versa.
Challenges to dichotomizing laboratory and lifeworld are not the monopoly of recent STS but
have occurred within sociocultural traditions as well: An example is the effort to seek for aproper methodology that synthesizes the narrow but rigorous protocol of laboratory experimentswith the diverse and largely qualitative character of observing situated practices (Cole, 1996). In
addition, the recent flourishing of so-called design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012;
Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003) with its experimental intervention in classroom education—also called design experiments (Brown, 1992)—may be regarded as anotherexample of this effort toward reconciliation. This approach, however, has been criticized for its
insufficient exploration of the range of social ecologies embodied in most such research (Cole &Packer, 2016).
Although I recognize the productivity of such diverse attempts, these appear to me to remain
within the somewhat conventional understanding, so to speak, where all the plasticity of laboratory
experimentation does not seem to be fully incorporated into their arguments. STS’s challenge not
only has clarified such plasticity of laboratory experiments that deconstructs such a dichotomous
view but also has the potential to open up a new research agenda dealing with, say, the dynamics of“experimentation in society,” which previous approaches have scarcely addressed.
That said, the status quo of research in STS remains a collection of miscellaneous case studies
confined to such limited topics as large-scale ecological trials or policy innovation, just mentioned.
Although some attempts have been made to diagnose contemporary society in general as a “trial
society” (Krohn & Weyer, 1994), and some recent laboratory studies have touched upon the sociological conditions that enable laboratory practice in the ivory tower (Frickel & Moore, 2006;
Kleinman, 2003), still largely missing is an effort to explore a more fine-tuned framework foranalyzing the various conditions that both enable and constrain such creative experimentation in
everyday situations.
I claim that the clue for developing such a new framework lies in a certain aspect of the classicalsociocultural and microsociological study of cognition and learning. These studies have looked at theexperimental side, so to speak, of our everyday actions in various social settings, under diverse
research programs such as neo-Deweyan analysis of practitioners’ reflective capacity (Schön, 1983),
ethnomethodological /ethnographical research on microinteraction with copy machines (Orr, 1996;
Suchman, 1987), symbolic interactionism in jazz improvisation (Becker, 2000; Sawyer, 2000), and soforth. Among these diverse trends, I wish to focus specifically on the dialogue between Becker (1972)
and Lave and Wenger (1991) concerning legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and the possibility—or not—of learning in the actual workplace, as it is a prime candidate in terms of requiring a newframework.
There are two reasons why I have chosen this dialogue from among other candidates. First, it
rather directly problematizes the very social conditions for such learning—not far from experimentation as characterized in this article—in a variety of real-world settings, in terms of bothconstraints and affordances. This topic remains largely missing in both STS and other microstudies of learning in situ, which are pivotally important to my objective. Second, even comparedwith subsequent theoretical development, such as that by Wenger (1998) on a “communities ofpractice” perspective (cf. Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002), the particular condition thatenables local experiment—a specific zone for protecting what I refer to as experimental trials—isMIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY

3

more sharply demarcated there, especially in the formulation of the “periphery” in LPP, which is
touched upon later.1
Becker’s (1972) article focuses on the reality of learning either at school or in the workplace. Even
while assaulting the uselessness of school learning as relevant only for surviving at school, Becker
also claimed that real learning does not occur in the workplace because of various obstacles, such as
the limited chances of proper guidance and the fatal cost of mistakes, which naturally limits novices’
freedom to experiment (Becker, 1972, p. 98). Becker’s radical conclusion is that learning is impossible either in or out of school, though he admitted that this is an extreme “ideal type” argument(Becker, 1972, p. 102). I tentatively call this argument “Becker’s conundrum.”
Lave and Wenger’s (1991) ensuing LPP framework can be interpreted partially as their response
to Becker’s conundrum. They argued that despite obstacles that may incapacitate situated learning in
the workplace, specific social spaces are often so structured that the newcomer can safely carry out
trials without the risk of taking responsibility for possible failures. This is the pivotal significance of
their term “periphery” in the LPP framework.
Summarized thus, this theoretical correspondence can be reconstrued as providing pivotal clues forformulating the condition and dynamics of experimentation as embedded in a social context: Becker’s
conundrum provided a list of possible obstacles to such local experimentation, as it presents the problemof the high cost of failures, as well as various constraints that curb such trials. Lave and Wenger (1991), in
turn, proposed that certain local mechanisms can protect these trials from such obstacles, and theypresented a variety of examples, such as African tailors along with modern workplace settings.
In the following pages, I develop insights taken from this controversy to formulate a frameworkfor describing conditions for experiments embedded in a social context—which I call the “everyday
experiment”—by focusing on three major points. First, I look at the importance of “failure” in theeveryday experiment and discuss how to deal with its negative consequences. Both sides of the
Becker-Lave/Wenger dialogue share the view that failure in situated trials can give rise both tolearnability and to damage from various costs. Hence, the very feasibility of such trials hinges upon
how to deal with this dual aspect of failure. To refer to and highlight this negative aspect of failed
trials, I adopt here the term “toxin.”
Second, on the negative side, Becker’s conundrum address the variety of macrosociologicalconstraints that directly influence local trials and may even overcome them. I use the term “constraint” to designate these macrosociological conditions. Third, I address local efforts to protect suchtrials by designing them in such a way as to decrease any resulting damage. I call these protections
for experiments, which relate to one of the pivotal claims of the LPP framework, “sociotechnicaldevices.” Finally, I call the very social space that enables such experimentation the “experimentalzone of learning” (EZL).
The reason I introduce the preceding set of neologisms, rather than simply adopting the sameterms—like “periphery”—lies in the very differences between their theoretical orientation and mine,
despite the apparently shared interest between us. First, the center of my EZL framework is not a
person or a community like in LPP, but experimentation itself. Luhmann’s (1995) social systemtheory—in a discussion of the way society is self-producing within the recursive network ofcommunication—posits that “communication” is the sole component of society and not a person
or human agency. Likewise, this article is an attempt to demarcate the conditions that either allow orconstrain a continuous flow of experimentation in the real-world setting. This treatment allows for amore finely tuned approach to preceding concerns vis-à-vis STS.
Second, because of this different focus, the controversy in some parts of situated learning theory
concerning matters of the individual versus the collective (Barton & Tusting, 2005; Hughes, Jewson,& Unwin, 2007) is not important to the EZL framework. Flows of experimentation may take place ateither the individual or the collective level, so our attention to everyday experiment does not entail areturn to individual psychology.
However, I also differentiate my stance from the preceding understanding of social experiment inSTS, which tends to highlight the recursive process of knowledge production between the social

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M. FUKUSHIMA

experiment and the academic laboratory (Gross, 2015). In the EZL framework, this recursive process
is not confined to this narrow laboratory–society continuum; rather, it should be extended to a moregeneral reflective flow of experimental trials that may circulate in diverse social settings, whereas theoutcomes similarly produce both knowledge and tacit skills, if not as exact as those from alaboratory.
This recursive flow of trials in localized situations constitutes the tentative definition of “everyday
experiment” in this article, which should also be distinct from mere coordination of our action in every
situation, like our body’s microslips (Sayeki & Sasaki, 1990). Learning, in turn, is tentatively defined as
the continuous flow of such everyday experiments along with their outcomes; the conditions that both
enable and curb it become the EZL. Although it is true that this way of defining learning does not cover
all the connotations of learning for various approaches to the subject, involving that of sociocultural
approach, this specific definition is expected to result in a unique mapping of the dynamics of EZL as
widely distributed throughout society and constantly fluctuating through time, and this mapping ability
thus may represent what the other approaches cannot afford to do.
In the following pages, I first detail the three major components of EZL, namely, the concept of
toxins, (macrosociological) constraints, and sociotechnical devices. A case study in an emergency
medical center follows, which presents observations concerning the local effort to sustain EZL and its
longitudinal change. The Discussion section locates this case in the wider context of different typesof local situations where these components may have different configurations, and argues further forthe potential of this framework.

Toward the experimental zone of learning
Toxins
The first among the major components that constitute the EZL framework is toxins, a term I use forthe negative consequences created by any kind of experimental trials in situ. Preceding arguments onsocial experimentation in STS have referred to either the creative significance of failure for knowledge production (Gross, 2015) or the possible damage it may inflict (Krohn & Weyer, 1994). I havenoted that in the Becker-Lave/Wenger dialogue, the issue of toxins plays a pivotal role, though theresearchers have different views on possible ways to deal with them.
To observe the way toxins function in circumstances differing from those in these precedents, it isworthwhile to look at a number of studies, conducted in technologically hazardous organizations,which have contributed to furthering our understanding of the way toxins work. Nakaoka’s (1974)
pioneering research on a chemical plant complex—from which the term “toxin” originates—detailed
the paradox of labor issues stemming from frequent explosions in the 1970s in Japan. He found thebulk of maintenance work, usually confined to checking signals throughout the plant, extremely
monotonous. Only when the machines gave trouble was there an opportunity to experiment with themachines to gain a better understanding of the system. In fact, many of the troubles—minor toxins,
in my terms—in the early phases of chemical plant construction afforded chances to learn about themachines, that is, provided an extensive EZL, whereas the outcome, namely, the gradual improvement of the system, ironically decreased the chance to fix failures as the system became flawless, thus
shrinking the EZL. As a result, if a large accident happened, only retired staff could deal it, because
the younger generation had experienced only the monotonous labor just described with few chances
to experiment. This case provides a good example of the paradoxical shrinkage of EZL, owing to thevery efforts to eliminate flaws from the system.
High reliability organization (HRO) studies, which have examined diverse safety practices in suchorganizations as aircraft carriers, control towers at airports, and nuclear power reactors, also provide
rich examples of toxins/EZL relations, as well as concrete ways to avoid such shrinkage (LaPorte &Consolini, 1991; Roberts, 1993). For instance, in certain places, a report on every minor mistake isboth obligatory and highly praised for enabling further examination to avoid lethal accidents

MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY

5(LaPorte & Consolini, 1991; Reason, 1997). This system can be interpreted as a particular effort tofind a way to avoid the longitudinal shrinkage of EZL by a specific organizational contrivance, which
I soon discuss as sociotechnical devices.
Constraints
Vis-à-vis such toxins, the second component that matters in the dynamics of EZL is (macrosociological) constraints. Compared to laboratory settings in academia where experimental trials may begenerously tolerated, the experiments in real-world situations may face various macrosociologicalfactors that slow or entirely eliminate such trials. Becker (1972) and Marshall (1972) have both beeneloquent in discussing a variety of factors that exert a negative influence on trials in concrete
situations, and the following sections extend their notion of constraints to those that they havenot fully discussed.
Spatio-temporal constraints
Both Becker (1972) and Marshall (1972) emphasized that trials in real-world situations should occur
in the proper space, both to experiment and to observe others doing the work. In fact, the peripheryin LPP can be interpreted as both abstract social space and the actual physical layout (Lave &Wenger, 1991). EZL inherits this attention not only to space but also to time, which is crucial forunderstanding such constraints. For both ordinary workplaces and the laboratory, the term “doability,” which refers to the important ability of experimenters to finish an experiment within the
expected amount of time, is recognized as pivotal (Fujimura, 1996). In the case of emergency
medicine presented here, this element of temporality plays a distinctive role in keeping EZL alivevis-à-vis even other types of medical settings.
Economic constraints
Economic elements range from the cost of toxins to the macroeconomic structure surrounding EZL.
Although Latour and Woolgar’s (1979) nonchalance concerning the economy of the laboratory life
was criticized in terms of their not properly noting that Guillemin’s laboratory was endowed with$150 million (Bimber & Guston, 1995) for collecting a large number of cow brains for their research(Wade, 1981), both Becker (1972) and Marshall (1972) are attentive to the work of such economic
constraints on learning in situ; the latter, detailing the learning of butchers on the spot, goes evenfurther in discussing not only the different economic costs of different types of meats, which affects
butchers’ work, but also the differences in the acceptability of badly cut meats for people at differing
economic levels. Economic constraints differ visibly from shops to HROs to the case studies
presented next, leading to different ways of constraining EZLs in each case.
Ethico-legal constraints
Although the issue of ethics and law has been avidly discussed in STS in relation to emerging
technoscience, this constraint appears to have been less focused in the previous studies of learning incontext. Ruined clothes, failed hair, and wrong prescriptions have not only different economic
consequences but also varying significance in terms of ethics and law. The aforementioned troubles
in chemical plants appear to have been within the confines of legal acceptability (Nakaoka, 1974),
whereas in current medical practice, a mistake might lead to serious issues of legal responsibility that
could shrink the EZL dramatically. Nunes and Barros’s (2014) comment on Becker’s own ethnographic study of medical education (Geer, Hughes, Strauss, & Becker, 1961) can be reinterpreted as
discussing the diminishing EZL caused by the changing traits of ethico-legal constraint: from a
relatively autonomous period—during which EZL could be somewhat protected—to that in which
mounting lawsuits against medical malpractice are threating medical practices, which are construable as a direct menace to EZL. This type of constraint is also palpable in the following case of
emergency medicine.

6

M. FUKUSHIMAThe Issue of power
In contrast with the constraints just identified, the issue of politics and power needs to be treateddifferently, as this is deeply entangled with the multifaceted nature of the concept of power itself.
Lukes (1974) pigeonholed the variations in defining power, beginning with Weberian coercion,through the Parsonian ability to act in concert, and culminating in Foucauldian institutional
canalization. Seen from this perspective, “political constraints” (in terms of power) may soundredundant, as the term “constraint” in itself already implies multiple aspects of power. Hence, inthe following case study, I provide concrete examples demonstrating that power matters in terms of,say, intra- and interorganizational power politics, rather than using the term “political constraint.”2
Sociotechnical devices
Vis-à-vis the constraints that curb the development of experimentation in situ, the local apparatuses
that protect and afford such trials in situ—the EZL—are “sociotechnical devices.” The adoption ofthis specific term draws part of its theoretical inspiration from that of “infrastructure studies,” nowwidely discussed in the STS community (Star & Bowker, 2002; Star & Ruhleder, 1996), as well as in
the relative recent research on learning in relation to extended tool-mediated activities (Bruni,
Gherardi, & Parolin, 2007; Guribye, 2015). Sociotechnical devices and infrastructure here have incommon the feature of being an assemblage of both human and nonhuman elements that afford thevarious activities hinging upon them; however, the former is more site specific and not always as
invisible as the latter. In addition, that these devices can be organizational also differentiates themfrom the connotation of a simple tool as well.
Sociotechnical devices can be sets of technical tools and apparatuses, organizational contrivances,and even economic routines. A laboratory in this sense is a large collection of such devices, and asystem of African tailors that allows for the recycling of failed cloths (Lave & Wenger, 1991) is
another example of such devices. HRO studies also provide ample examples of such devices, like theroutine of encouraging a report of the slightest malfunction or errors, as noted earlier (LaPorte &Consolini, 1991).

The emergency medical center case
Following the outline of the three major components of EZL, in this section I present a brief casestudy of an emergency medical center in Japan where I conducted field research in 1993 for 1 year.
Medicine is important for examining the dynamics of EZL owing to its changing constraints inrecent years as seen in various factors, such as patient safety, financial crises and ensuing marketization, and so forth.
Japan has a relatively well-established network of emergency medical centers, which were started
in the 1960s to deal with increasing traffic accidents in an era of rapid economic growth (Kidokoro,
2001). Japanese emergency medicine is distinct from the American-style emergency room (ER; Roth& Douglas, 1983; Zink, 2006) in having a three-level structure based on the critical level of a patient’s
condition.
My research was conducted at a center specializing in the critically ill at a university hospital. The
center is fully equipped with an operation room, intensive care units (ICUs), and a great deal ofother equipment. Emergency medicine demands a huge amount of diverse knowledge and expertiseto cover symptoms ranging from multiple concussions to acute poisoning. The center’s focus on theemergency phase may decrease its burden, but collaborative skill is required with doctors fromdifferent disciplines.
In Japanese emergency medicine, patients are often treated for longer than in the average ER in
the United States, as evidenced by the term “acute” rather than emergency as their official denomination. For instance, some centers favor brain hypothermal therapy, a complex method that requires
a longer term of treatment than is normal for an ER. These aspects, in fact, contribute to expanding
EZL in emergency medicine in the Japanese style (detailed later in the article).

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Emergency medicine has also changed over the years: Treating multiple concussions caused bytraffic accidents was a focus in the 1960s, whereas in recent years the focus has moved toward
internal symptoms, such as heart attacks. Such a longitudinal change also has various effects on thewaxing and waning of the EZL, as demonstrated at various levels in their daily activities.

Various constraints in and out of the emergency center
Against such a background, various constraints influence the actual dynamics of the EZL in thecenter. Superficially, the temporal constraint characterizes it most visibly, as the majority of thepatients are brought in with grave conditions that demand speedy treatment. This temporalconstraint works negatively for the sustenance of EZL in the various contexts of the center. Spatialconstraints as well are also evident in the fact that patients must be brought to the center in a matterof minutes. Thus, the geographical placement of the center is important; in addition, the physicallayout of the ward is so structured that patients’ changing conditions can be monitored from any
spot, which may contribute somewhat to the EZL, as constant observation is enabled wherever it is.
Such constraints in time and space are generally restrictive for the EZL as a whole; however, they
are somewhat mitigated by the relative characteristic looseness of this medical genre. The fact that
the Japanese keep patients longer than the global standard works positively for the EZL, as shown
later. In addition, economic constraints did not seem to have much of an effect on the EZL in thiscenter. Although Japanese emergency medicine has been known to be a money loser (Okamoto,Matsushima, Hara, & Terai., 2006), the head of the center at that time—who was concurrently vicedirector of the hospital—appeared to be permissive on this issue, as he thought that such a center
was highly symbolic for showing the public that the hospital was well equipped, which otherwise
might seriously shrink the EZL.
The ethico-legal constraint is, in fact, a hazy zone for this genre of medicine. The center’s patientsare very often in a condition of cardio-pulmonary arrest, too late for resuscitation. An ambiguous
margin exists here between natural death and emergency doctors’ failure to resuscitate, allowing forthese doctors’ rather rough and rushed ways of treatment. Thus, even though medical accidents
remain a serious issue in the center, which may have a negative effect on the EZL, this hazy domain
also allows the EZL to remain alive, as detailed later.

Sociotechnical devices
In addition to these constraints, which are more or less related to the specific nature of emergency
medicine, the sociotechnical devices that afford the EZL are rather distinctively characterized in thecenter by concern for the patients’ safety. From among the variety of such devices, I discuss three.
The first is locally called the “prescription table,” a small, formalized sheet listing all the pertinent
orders of the doctor in charge of a given patient. The list contains such items as various types of
injection and special prescriptions and is followed by checklists for four meetings before and after
the order’s execution. This piece of paper literally circulates through the center, just as leukocytes
circulate through the human body to hunt for viruses. Each local change in the orders may bechecked at any time, either on the spot or in meetings, to keep track of what is going on.
The second device is the meeting (kanfa) itself, which is held twice a day during the day shift withall of the doctors present. In these meetings, streams of knowledge and experience are both checkedand discussed. A brain neurologist who had once stayed at the center recalled the endless diversity of
the range of discussion, compared to the somewhat limited ones in his own department. This
diversity, however, may pose problems for novices. In one example, a novice otolaryngologist
could not provide a reason for the specific amount of a diuretic drug that had been prescribed fora particular patient. Her uncertainty naturally invited sneers and criticism from her seniors, but theseniors did not then follow up with direct instruction. Rather, they let her do the job, as part of the8

M. FUKUSHIMA

necessary recursive flow of experimenting, by correcting any possible toxins arising from misjudgment; this approach is essential for EZL.
These meetings occasionally look much like those in a laboratory, reflecting the center’s characteras part of a university hospital. For example, one patient was suffering from internal intestinal
bleeding that would not stop. The kanfas on the case went nowhere as the senior doctors offered avariety of indecisive hypotheses. Despite the pessimistic prognosis, the patient survived and even
improved slightly. A few days later, a young specialist in gastrointestinal medicine who had been
invited to the kanfa observed that the problem might have been caused by a blood transfusion gonewrong. In this case, the kanfa proved itself as a sociotechnical device that was able to provide enoughresources for thorough examination of any issues, thereby producing new knowledge. This incident
illustrates another aspect of this device that sustains the EZL.
The third device is a specific rule for this center: The doctors are required to write down all of
their orders in a “cadex,” a thick file controlled by the so-called “lead nurse” of the day, who is incharge of all the nurses’ activity in the center. Doctors are not allowed to give direct orders to thenurses but to go to where the lead nurse checks each order; then the order is passed from her to thebedside nurses. Such critical scrutiny of the doctors from the lead nurse—a temporary reverse in therelationship between doctors and nurses (Hughes, 2008; Stein, 1967)—serves as a powerful filter for
all possible toxins (in this case, mistaken orders), especially from ignorant novice doctors. Because it
ensures patient safety, it is a powerful guarantee that the EZL will survive.
EZL in action
Given this background, various types of the EZL can be witnessed in other aspects of the center’s
activity. For example, each patient’s unique physiology means that standardized dosages represent a
starting point, whereas the proper amount should be carefully explored through the recursive flow oftrial, observation, and retrial that is afforded by an EZL.
A case from a psychiatric ward for chronic patients that I observed in the early 1990s may be helpful
by way of comparison for understanding the relation between such the EZL and the toxins hidden in
medication issues. One day the doctors in the ward decided to increase the dosage of powerful
tranquilizers to dispel a delusion in a patient suffering from persistent persecution mania. Alarmed
by the subsequent heavy drowsiness of the patient, the doctors then gradually decreased the medication.
The unexpected result was that the delusional fear rebounded, and the patient, afraid that the doctors
would attack him, injured one of them with a knife he had brought in secretly for self-defense.
This kind of dramatic example represents both the existence of an extensive EZL and the failure
to avoid the toxins that occurred in the form of the patient’s relapse into persecution mania. Thiscase has no equivalent in the emergency center, where it is largely the temporal constraints specificto emergency medicine that afford the more limited EZL there. For instance, brain hypothermia
therapy—one of the treatments highlighted at this center—consists of cooling the temperature ofpatients suffering from brain concussion to avoid brain swelling, which may cause brain death. Suchcooling of the body, however, may cause the immune system to malfunction, leading to further
infection. Hence, this therapy requires a rather rigid set of protocols and rapid intervention for 24 hr;
thus, it is very difficult to achieve enough EZL-like elbow room for experiments, even by the veteranstaff there.
A certain level of EZL can be observed in a later phase, however, when a patient stabilizes aftercoming out of ICU. At that time, doctors and nurses may use more trials in medication or othertreatments. Rotating novice doctors may decide what to do at the bedside, though a certain level of
uncertainty always characterizes their decisions, owing to their lack of experience; thus, the process
naturally zigzags with constant changes in orders, even if it is carefully monitored by supervisors
with the help of the various sociotechnical devices just detailed.
The nurses are also occasionally involved in such trials. In fact, patients cared for outside of the
ICU provide the best opportunity for observing how EZL works for the nurses, too. One patient was

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9

very shaky when getting out of bed, owing to poor physical balance; thus, the nurses feared that hemight fall out of bed. They considered various safety measures, such as a medical straitjacket or somekind of sensing device. Having tried a couple of feasible ideas, they eventually concluded that more
frequent monitoring of his condition was sufficient to ensure his safety.
Another crucial element of the EZL can be observed in borderline cases involving incoming
cardio-pulmonary arrest patients. Such patients are supposed to be resuscitated for half an houraccording to regulations. Once the time has passed and the patient’s death is confirmed, doctors tend
to continue to examine the patient’s body, using such tools as ultrasonic echo or groping for thecentral veins usually used for dripping. One might question the necessity of such a postmortem
examination, but in fact this imprecise border between the urgent necessity of treating a living bodyand examining a dead one is the sizeable realm of EZL that is specific to this kind of center and israrely found in other types of medical settings. Its legitimacy, however, could be contested by a surgeof further ethico-legal constraints in the future.
EZL and experimentation at the collective level
One of the intriguing aspects of the EZL in the center is that it is not confined to either novices orindividuals; rather, it can be observed even at advanced levels and collectively. One such case wasobservable when an incongruence occurred between the amount of a drug given and its record. The
nurses in charge launched a full-scale investigation to track down the discrepancy; they reexamined
every step by interviewing all the nurses who had taken part. After a day of examination, they
concluded that the error had resulted from an ambiguous way of counting a set of ampules. The
center’s policy of allowing this kind of mobilization of nurses’ time and manpower is a typicalexample of a sociotechnical device used for the collective understanding of the organizational
problems hidden in such failures, and it is supported by the organizational level of EZL.
However, the ability to sustain the EZL at this level appeared to be somewhat shaky anddependent on circumstances. In one case, an erroneous order from a doctor passed unnoticed,
eventually being reported to the safety committee in the hospital as a minor error. The doctors’
reaction was lukewarm, however; they did not seem to care that this kind of inattention might leadto possible shrinkage of the EZL at the collective level. The nurses occasionally showed similar
weakness: in another case, a novice nurse failed to give the proper dosage of a drip to patient. The
senior nurse noticed it and immediately stopped the drip. The nurse was severely scolded for her
lack of vigilance, but no one fully explored the reason for the mistake. Here also the effort to expand
the EZL by examining the toxin was replaced with a prevalent folk-theory that attributes mistakes
solely to the “absentmindedness” of the practitioner, with no attempt made to discover more
complex reasons that might have involved both human and nonhuman factors.
Finally, the other intriguing feature of the EZL is related to constant ongoing experimentation
relating to the form of the organization, which were a response to rapid environmental change. My
research was conducted at the end of the older rotation system wherein some trainees could choose
to practice emergency medicine for 3 months. In this older system, there was a kind of fluctuatingorganizational structure from the senior doctors down to the patients: On 1 day, for example, SeniorDoctors A, B, D with Novices a, b, e, f might be on duty. The next day, Doctors C and E would be on
duty with Novices b, c, d, f. In this system, the responsibility was collective, with the entire group ofsenior doctors taking charge of all the rotating novices, each of which was assigned the care of twopatients. This system was intended for information sharing among doctors while sustaining EZL for
novices’ trials; however, the seniors began to worry about the possibility of toxins in the form of
miscommunication among the doctors owing to such irregular rotation, and of collective irresponsibility, that is, uncertainty about who would finally take charge of whom.
A temporary drought of incoming patients during the summer also prompted them to try a new
system: Doctors and patients were divided into two teams to secure tighter control over patient care.
At the very end of my stay, the new national training system prompted a further change in which

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every trainee was required to take 2 months’ training in emergency medicine. This move resulted ina sudden increase of rotating novice doctors: from six to more than 20 at the center. Senior doctors
were alerted further to try a new system by assigning a senior doctor to two patients, with novices
assisting the senior in charge. This change was accompanied with a sudden rise in the number ofofficial lectures, which had hardly been done before. Although I was unable to follow the consequences, it was easy to see that this new system did not at all guarantee a local level of EZL at thecenter.
At least two elements deserve attention in this case. The first is that constant change in theorganizational structure is in itself a sort of experimentation that is afforded by its own EZL. Thevery administrative structure serves as a sociotechnical device to afford this experimentation,
namely, the relative autonomy of the center in terms of decision making, which enabled such trials
without interference from the hospital bureaucracy.
Second, this level of EZL and the organizational experiments are meant to sustain the EZL at alow level, that is, to avoid shrinkage at the lower levels of the EZL which could be caused byorganizational maladaptation to the rapidly changing environment. This means that it is possible for
an EZL to have a nested structure, namely, an EZL within an EZL, which as a whole constitutes thecomplex dynamics of experimentation at the various levels of the center’s activities.

Discussion
It was the recollection of a senior doctor at the center that led me to the seminal concept of the EZL.
This doctor related that his supervisor had once told him to try whatever he believed to be right forthe patients and that he, the supervisor, would take full responsibility for the consequences. The
doctor asserted that this approach is at the heart of the center’s modus operandi.
There are a few advantages to analyzing EZL in this specific case study. First, it is a good exercise
in understanding how toxins work in concrete contexts that differ from each other. Compare thiscase with certain classical instances in the study of learning in context, such as being a butcher’s
apprenticeship (Marshall, 1972) or the example of the African tailors (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In
medical practice, constraints related to safety are at the forefront as toxins must be neutralized
through the webs of specific sociotechnical devices, whereas in the former cases, the pivotal
constraints in relation to bad meat or failed cloths are economic, signifying different types of toxinsthat would require different sociotechnical devices to protect the EZL. In summary, the dynamics ofthe EZL as a whole in the emergency center share a few traits with the HRO case studies just cited.
However, because the case studied here is part of the university hospital, it has a couple ofcharacteristics specific to its own EZL dynamics. Although a few of the sociotechnical devices are
directly concerned with toxins that are hazardous to patients’ safety, some elements—such as the
kanfa’s examination itself—visibly have a laboratory-like character. In addition, the fact that emergency medicine deals with patients in cardio-pulmonary arrest provides an undefined zone of EZL
for experimentation, despite the fact that temporal constraints often work against the EZL, as in aflight control tower or operations on an aircraft carrier where temporal elbowroom is minimal(LaPorte & Consolini, 1991).
In addition to this comparative perspective, this case also provides dynamics for examining thelongitudinal changes of an EZL vis-à-vis macrosociological changes in its environment. Not only are
growing concerns about patient safety and the rising costs of medication significant here in terms ofchanging constraints, but also the overall situation of emergency medicine has been rapidly changing
in recent years, which has also greatly affected the dynamics of the EZL with regard to temporalconcerns. Such longitudinal fluctuation of the EZL has already been clearly hinted at in precedingstudies, such as Nakaoka’s (1974) study on chemical plants, mentioned earlier, where the successful
establishment of a particular system eventually led to radical shrinkage in the EZL; in my case,however, the dynamics of the EZL appear to be more complex, not confined to the systems’
dynamics but related as well to the longitudinal dynamics of multiple constraints upon the local EZL.

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11

Finally, this case also contributes to understanding the multilayered aspects of the EZL, namely, its
nested structure. As pointed out previously, the EZL in principle is not confined to an individual level ofexperimentation but can be extended to the collective level, as shown earlier in the case of organizational
experimentation. Thus, we are prompted to understand the EZL as multilayered, which eventually may
lead to a further nonlinear trajectory of the EZL as an outcome of mutual interference in the different
levels of EZLs. This, however, is an open question to be answered in future research.

Conclusion
The rich inventory of research on cognition and learning in diverse sociocultural conditions has played
an important role by expanding understanding of a topic once narrowly confined to experiments in alaboratory by way of emphasizing a scientific approach. The framework itself can benefit by meeting thechallenge of STS that has been changing our conventional view of both laboratory and at-large
experimentation, with its seminal emphasis on experiment as deeply embedded in society from the
beginning. This article has attempted to develop a synthesis of this emerging view in STS with part ofthe legacy from the sociocultural and microsociological approach to learning in context, namely, thedialogue between Becker (1972) and Lave and Wenger (1991) on the (im)possibility of situated learningin various types of workplaces. I have shown that this dialogue provides a pivotal clue for developing amore finely tuned framework to analyze the local conditions that afford what I call everyday experiment.
The three major conceptual components developed here are (a) toxins, the negative consequences ofexperimental trials and the various ways of dealing with them; (b) constraints that demarcate possible
zones where such experiments may be allowed; and (3) sociotechnical devices, a set of assisting efforts,
both human and nonhuman, that afford such experiments. In addition, the very specific zone thatenables such experiments in situ is called the EZL.
This formulation entails a number of points: First, the nature of this zone differs radically invarious sociocultural settings, so this framework encourages further comparative studies between
different sociocultural conditions (cf. Cole, 1996); second, this framework need further longitudinaland historical studies as well, given that the EZL is essentially an unstable social space produced by
the ever-changing interaction of the factors noted earlier. This view is instrumental for avoiding its
possible reification in an ahistorical manner. Third, as this framework is not confined to novices orto the individual level but is applicable to the collective level, the EZL can have a nested structure—
an EZL within an EZL—which is a subject for further exploration, as this has been hardly examined
either in STS or in the sociocultural studies of learning.
Probably, however, one of the largest advantages of this approach is that this framework may
enable a radical reconsideration of the existing way of bridging the gap between laboratory andeveryday life, especially in the manner of preceding STS arguments on social experiments, where themain focus has often been the cases of highly educated citizens and relate to advanced technology.
This article has attempted to replace this kind of bias by drawing on lessons from the rich legacy ofthe sociocultural approach to learning—involving, say, unflashy butchers and African tailors—topromote a more symmetrical approach to the issue. In this sense, I am convinced that experimentation is not monopolized by laboratories in the ivory tower. Rather, it is deeply embedded in our
everyday lives, constantly producing the tiny improvisations and reflections that will eventuallychange our world.

Notes
1. In Wenger’s ensuing formulation, this periphery becomes somewhat diluted with further classification withouta clear focus on what the periphery might mean in the context of my theoretical concern here; see Barton andTusking (2005) and DePalma (2009) for the limited and yet unexplored possibility of Wenger’s framework.
2 This issue of power in terms of canalizing the flow of experiment in the direction of a specific purpose is deeply
related to issues of both instruction and innovation, which cannot be treated here owing to space limitations.

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M. FUKUSHIMA

Acknowledgments
I thank Mike Cole and anonymous reviewers for their instructive comments. I also thank the staff of the emergency
medical center for their magnanimous collaboration with my field research.

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