My history with blogging is entirely relevant to my greater point: after writing a surge of generally well-received blog entries in 2008-2009, I left the scene entirely. I used Twitter haltingly and no longer read the works of other bloggers. I erased all of my blog entries, leaving the only backups in Archive.org. Why did I eliminate all of my words on the internet, even when others appreciated and learned from them? Because I couldn’t figure out what being an ‘expert’ meant. That thought alone silenced me, at least on the internet.

Is There a Map to the Road of Expertise?

The reason I wrote blog entries from 2008-2009 is because I actively lived in Japan. I was physically immersed in Japanese culture, and could talk to my Japanese friends and neighbors about their culture. I felt a sense of objectivity to my knowledge, like an embedded reporter stating only the facts and leaving the analysis to pundits somewhere else in the world. In Japan, I spoke the local slang, imbibed the regional brews, and took the national transportation system. I was an expert by means of experience. My words on the internet were then, in many ways, words crafted by an expert. The experience of living in Japan put my message on par with many bloggers across the globe that had similar experiences. The community was giving, understanding, and willing to accept new members. In reality, the bloggers about Japan were really more of a collaborative collective, building knowledge bit by bit through social interactions.  But very few could be considered ‘experts,’ and many could be considered ‘downright wrong.’ It was really hard for me to abruptly abandon the blogging realm, but mentally I couldn’t understand how these socially constructed statements about Japan were to be considered the words of experts.

After returning to America in 2009, I landed back in academia, studying Japanese history at a major university. I was surrounded by people who made a living on being nationally and internationally respected experts on Japan. My academic writing now served to further my career, and while it competed as a statement of truth with and among other academics, these words crafted by expertise could not be rendered open to the public for a number of professional and career reasons. Among academics, blogging was a useful tool for communication, but blogs also subtly (and overtly) outlined the perceived levels of expertise. Among many academics, the academy is seen as the gatekeeper of expertise–those who are inside of it are either experts or on their way to being experts, and those outside of it are, at best, qualified, but most likely not an expert. The old school of academia is often seen as exclusionary–the path to expertise is exclusively through the ivory tower.

I’m starting to think very differently about the road map to expertise. Drawing my personal map has been complicated and complex, but the road I see ahead is a productive and collaborative one.

Different Kinds of Mapmakers

The word ‘expert’ often connotes that once somebody achieves ‘expertise,’ they will always be an expert. Academically speaking, often the connotation is that expertise runs into everything. This is not so in a number of other fields, say for instance, music. An expert drummer is not necessarily an expert at all forms of percussion, but is nonetheless has a good chance of at least being competent. Very few expert drummers make a band all by themselves, and rely upon the competence and expertise of other musicians to produce songs. In many ways an analogy can be made to the knowledge statements of blogging and academia: rarely is there an expert in everything, but rather there are a lot of experts in certain aspects.

For example, I am at least very competent in Japanese history, particularly the modern era in respect to technology and baseball. I am not competent in Japanese fashion, anime, and the scene around Akihabara. However, the average non-Japanese person will hear that I study Japan, and ask me, “What do you know about anime?” The truth is, I know a few things. But imagine saying that because I’ve watched the entire Aliens and Matrix series, that makes me an expert in the sci-fi movie genre. In reality, I’m actually just a person that knows a bit more about anime than my inquisitor. It’s not that I have nothing to say about anime, I’m just not an expert. As for the path to knowledge about Japanese fashion or anime, the knowledge map I provide people should lead to other experts more competent than me. But just where are these experts?

The Road Ahead

In The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Jacques Ranciere began with the argument that the French working class were not allowed into the University system because they were never properly prepared for the entrance examination. In this situation, the experts deemed who could be an expert and who could not. The workers truly ‘could not know what they did not know’–in other words, all there was only University knowledge, and they were not allowed to access it.

Blogging changes all of this. Academics and business people and common citizens alike enter a similar playing field. There will be better players of course–leaders and followers, superstars and bench players. Access to knowledge is as easy as asking, but there remains the necessity for continued investigation of statements.The road ahead is drawn by many mapmakers, and while some might be better users and makers of knowledge than others, it is nonetheless important to keep in mind that amateur mapmakers need to know that they can know.

Where, then, are the experts among the bloggers about Japan? They are everywhere, and they are being made all of the time.