Meaning deals with our changing individual and collective abilities. Meaning enables us to more fully experience our life and our engagement in the world around us. Meaning is located in a process, which Wenger describes as the negotiation of meaning. This negotiation suggests the gradual achievement and give and take of emerging meaning. Negotiation of meaning also involves the interaction of participation and reification.
Participation involves action and connection.
Reification is the process of giving form to our experience. Members of a community of practice participate and reify continuously, which produces many experiences in meaning. This interaction of participation and reification are not mutually exclusive events, but there is interplay between the two. Practice and meaning are intertwined. The practice grows meaning.