The Practical Turn

Abstract

What is "practice theory"? The best short answer is that it is any theory that treats practice as a fundamental category, or takes practices as its point of departure .Naturally, this answer leads to further questions . What is meant by "practices" here? What is involved in taking practices as a point of departure or a fundamental category, and what does that commitment amount to? And what is the point of the contrast between a practice-based theory and one that starts elsewhere?Perhaps the most significant point of agreement among those who have taken the practical turn is that it offers a way out of Procustean yet seemingly inescapable categories, such as subject and object, representation and represented, conceptual scheme and content, belief and desire, structure and action, rules and their application, micro and macro, individual and totality . Instead, practice theorists propose that we start with practices and rethink our theories from the ground up. Bourdieu, for instance, insists that only a theory of practice can open up a way forward :

Epistemology of Transformative Material Activity: John Dewey's Pragmatism and Cultural‐Historical Activity Theory

“…These lists most often include Bordieu, Garfinkel's ethnomethodology as well as actor network theory (Preda 2000, Reckwitz 2002, Niccolini et al 2003, Gerardi 2006). The most important philosophical foundations for a practice theory have been found in late Wittgenstein's later theory of rules and forms of life and Heidegger's early theory of being‐in‐the‐world (Reckwitz 2002, Stern 2003).…”

After taste: Culture, consumption and theories of practice

“…While theories of practice still remain very diverse (Nicolini, 2012;Rouse, 2007;Schatzki, 2011;Stern, 2003), the absence of robust and definitive theoretical resolution has not prevented the emergence of distinctive and defensible empirical analyses; new emphases drawn often eclectically from the works of the celebrated theorists have shed fresh light on social processes. Typically, promotion is directed less to developing theory, more to considering how various themes arising from the heterogeneous sources of the first two phases of theoretical development might be employed to address problems of description, interpretation and explanation of social processes and behaviour in a particular domain.…”

From Habituality to Change: Contribution of Activity Theory and Pragmatism to Practice Theories

“…As David Stern (2003, p. 188) points out, most of the accounts of the practice turn and theorizing do not refer, or refer only in passing, to these classical philosophical antecedents of the practice concept. The philosophical roots of the new practice theories are found in the works of Heidegger and Wittgenstein.…”

“…The concept of social practice has been widely used in sociology and organisational studies to the point that many scholars have started to speak about the practice turn in social theory (e.g. Schatzki, Knorr‐Cetina, & Von Savigny, 2001; Reckwitz, 2002; Stern, 2003). It is difficult to characterize this turn when there are so many partially overlapping, yet different approaches associated with it.…”