Star and Griesemer do not delineate a list of character traits that would characterize an “ideal collaborator,” rather they take a more ecological approach. Through their analysis of this particular historical example of a successful collaboration, they show how the collaborative interaction of numerous parties, inhabiting appreciably different “social worlds,” was facilitated by material semiotic process of identifying/utilizing boundary objects and developing standardized practices (For more detail see the TECHNO, META, and PRACTICE annotations). The fact that both Grinnell and Alexander were rather personable and had strong personalities did of course play a role, but the point of the article is to argue that collaboration is not so much dependent on the character traits of individuals as it is on the configuration of the relations between unique groups and individuals, and the way these relations are mediated by material-semiotic objects and practices.
