This article finds its scope in the shift in gaze from Higher Education institutions as formal organizational entities to the network of actors engaged with one another in various ways and degrees. The pluralization of knowledge and actors implies assemblage and hybridization processes. These processes themselves presuppose the existence of 'cross-worlds scenes', that is, assemblage scenes where a plurality of actors and types of representation intersect and confront one another – either virtually or face-to-face. These scenes constitute important spheres for the exchange and hybridization of knowledge and representation. They are also important spheres of cognitive learning: by facilitating the comparison of various types of knowledge, they in effect allow new cognitive elements (those that are not too threatening to the cognitive host structures) to merge into these structures and, having adapted in this way, to sustain the actions and continue their dissemination. In this paper we will discuss the potential of egonetwork analysis as both a theoretical and methodological approach to characterize, in terms of structure and patterns, the relations of otherness and power that determine knowledge flows and changes across and within universities. We will make use of the term knowledge as driver, a form and a site to and from where those changes flow and evolve. It reflects the fact that elements previously separate - analytically and/or in practice – now tend to combine. In the field of knowledge, we observe a trend toward the merging of diverse types of knowledge and an effort to escape fragmentation and segmentation. We hypothesize that the egonetwork analysis may contribute to the understanding of how, in practice, and by what mechanisms the development and implementation of different knowledge cultures phases tend to merge in today’s Higher Education. We argue that the reach of this ‘networks’ is not just a function of their distributed, interconnected and global nature –for which internet is iconic – but of the fact that the character and nature of ego networks means that it is able to create and develop spaces and opportunities for emergent forms of sociality, and for groups and individuals to develop and enhance different knowledge cultures.
