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Good ways to think about how family care practices and those of the formal system relate is a theoretical and practical problem of longstanding. Few would disagree that the ways that families and formal care systems handle daily life are different, with extensive research efforts undertaken over many decades addressed to these issues - yet problems in relations persist. In this chapter the philosophical work of Isabelle Stengers is used to open up and rethink this problem. Specifically, divergences in family and formal care practices are analysed through Stengers’ conceptualization of an ‘ecology of practices.’ In Stengers’ view, what makes a practice diverge is also what makes it a particular practice; overriding these differences and imposing similarity, such as efforts to ‘professionalize’ family caregiving, can damage the practice so aligned. Instead Stengers’ figure of the diplomat shows how diverging practices that have common interests - but not necessarily the same interests - might relate. One family’s experiences in daily life with dementia is used to show the relevance of this ecological theorizing of divergence in practices, and to make a case for the need for diplomatic relations between practices that leave ‘borders’ and thus practices intact.

Chapter three revisits the history of archaeological engagements to tell a different story concerning the formation of archaeology as a recognizable ecology of practices, by which we are referring to archaeology as a specific community and a distinctive habitat. Here, as part of the diverse makeup of this habitat, the missing masses of showcases and diagrams, museum rooms and corridors, institutes and chairs, periodicals and diaries, theodolites and cameras, conference dinners and hotel bars are reintroduced to form a thicker account of how archaeology became visible and normalized as a distinct disciplinary practice.

The first chapter lays a foundation for the book by defining boundary discourse in crossdisciplinary and cross-sector work. It begins by distinguishing spatial and organic metaphors of boundaries, with initial emphasis on disciplines. It then combines the two metaphors in a composite concept of an ecology of spatializing practices, illustrated by the evolving nature of disciplines as well as trading zones and communities of practice. The chapter then describes structures for interdisciplinary work, followed by the concept of heterarchy, changing character of higher education, platforms for communication and collaboration, and role of the built environment. It turns next to boundary objects, illustrated by construction of a natural history museum, an academic reform initiative, a project on waste management, and the relationship of objects and their description in climate modeling, regulatory discourse, genetic toxicology, and human ecology. The chapter ends by examining boundary organizations and agents in two cross-sector case studies.