The perspective set out by Rutten in his paper contributes to a growing body of work that places individuals, their social context and practice at the fore in analyses of the spatiality of knowledge (see also for instance Howells, 2012; Ibert, 2007, 2010; Vallance, 2011). Indeed, the distinction made between ability and willingness by drawing on the work of Reagans and McEvily (2003), and the associated ideas that an individual's multiple social contexts affect ability to learn whilst social capital affects willingness, correspond with arguments I have made previously about the social foundations of stretched relational spaces of learning (Faulconbridge, 2006, 2007a, 2010; Faulconbridge et al., 2012), and the situated but not necessarily local politics, reciprocity, trust and mutual understanding that encourage collective learning endeavours (Faulconbridge, 2007b, 2007c). Similarly, the underlying argument that distinctions between tacit and explicit knowledge are best understood as variations in the social-contextual embeddedness of knowledge sit comfortably with and helps provide an analytical clarity to Polanyi's (1967) and more recently Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) assertions that all knowledges are more or less tacit and explicit, and never solely one or the other form. Intuitively, then, the response to Rutten's paper is positive, particularly because of the work it does to synthesise ideas emerging from across the social sciences. Rutten's paper does, however, leave me with two nagging concerns, one theoretical and one empirical. This paper addresses these concerns
