Revisiting the notion of Boundary Object

International audienceIn an article which has since achieved some renown, entitled “Institutional ecology, “translations”, and boundary objects: amateurs and professionals” – Susan L. Star and James R. Griesemer (Star and Griesemer, 1989) introduced the notion of boundary object on the basis of an ethnographical study of the coordination mechanisms of scientific work. Since, the concept has enjoyed a vigorous academic career, being deployed in particular in the field of knowledge management. It has paved the way to a conceptual progeny – boundary work, boundary spanning, boundary organisation -, traversed a variety of disciplinary fields (sociology, management, educational science, design engineering, etc.) and incorporated increasingly diversified “genres” of knowledge objects and artefacts. The purpose of this introduction of the special issue on "boundary object" is therefore to revisit the concept in order to look at its analytical scope whilst taking care to maintain the close articulation between interpretive flexibility and infrastructure