Participation and Reification

The concepts of participation and reification are distinct however they are intertwined in an inseparable duality. However, they are not opposite edges of a spectrum, substituting and occupying each other, but a fusion, an alloy of metals, where the components are mixed and transformed in tandem. Along with this synchronized process of participation/ reification, the meaning is constantly negotiated. Reification, is the understanding of each individual, projected, through participation, into the world, negotiated socially and then perceived back by the individual as having a universal meaning.

I perceive the duality or participation and reification as an alloy of metals, where the components are mixed and transformed in tandem

Participation is both action (doing, talking, and feeling) and connection (involvement, membership, and belonging) including all kinds of relations, even the conflictual and competitive ones. The concept of reification might encompass physical objects (e.g. tangible tools), abstract concepts (e.g. ideas and regulations) and the modes of representation of those concepts and objects (language, drawing system, symbols, etc).  

Participation is not limited only to those people that have physical presence but might also include absent people or predecessor. For example an architect during the design, he negotiates with potential clients and imaginary users of a future building. Reification is not limited to concrete and tangible tools (knife, forks, etc) but also includes the meanings that participants attribute to these tools, like 'spoon' to eat food, 'knife' to cut food.

Through participation, the meaning is constantly negotiated but not necessarily invented, since individuals draw on previous patterns extending, redirecting, dismissing, reinterpreting, modifying or confirming- in a word negotiate anew- the histories of meanings of which they are part. Meaning is both dynamic and historical, emerging in the ongoing process of participation and reification.

An example from the architectural practice

The architect participates in the activity by doing (drawing, thinking, reading, sketching, etc), and by belonging in a community of architects (constructing an identity as an architect). He uses the tools of the community, both tangible and abstract (drafting tools, aesthetic values, the symbolic drawing language, etc), which also encompass the congealed history from the predecessors. The architect, through his participation and by using the cultural tools, negotiates the reification of several meanings (functionality, aesthetics, human needs, etc) with other participants (clients, the critics, the historians, the users, the builders). 

The architectural design as a process of participation and reification.