2021

This is an introductory course centred around the concept of practice. It aims to offer a general overview of the so-called practice turn in the social sciences, compare and contrast the most important theories of practice in sociology, and examine a series of case studies in practice research informed by recent developments in cultural anthropology, ethnomethodology, discourse analysis, and science and technology studies. After an introductory session we proceed by identifying various components of practice theory as possible focus points. Each component - 'bodies', 'texts', 'materialities', 'temporalities', 'spatialities', 'ways of knowing' - is discussed in two consecutive sessions with the help of (a) classical social scientific texts and (b) specific case studies.

Practice sociology seeks to overcome the ingrained academic division of labour between blind empirical research without theory and 'scholastic' theory that immunises itself against being empirically questioned. To meet such demands, this chapter proposes a procedure of praxeologising, which combines empirical perspectives and theoretical tools within stimulating epistemic arrangements. This procedure closely ties in with praxeological epistemology, which subsequently is exemplified using three steps. First, by referring to Bourdieu's praxeology, this study reflects on the differences between the practices of theorising and the logic of practice within the fields of activities to be studied and theorised. Second, it is illustrated how the procedure of praxeologising can employ a heuristics of game playing to focus on the tacit, bodily dimensions of social events and participants' shared feel and sense of the game. Third, it is pointed out that to master the overtly public nature of social practices, praxeology particularly should work out applicative procedures and methods derived from observation.

Practice Theory and Research, 2016

Science & Technology Studies

China Journal of Social Work

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2003

Our current period has been characterized by Geertz (2000, p. 102) as a ''posteverything era''. The abundant use of the prefix ''post'' (e.g. ''post-marxism'', ''postfeminism'', ''post-structuralism'', ''post-humanism'', and so on), suggesting that we are moving on from the reigning theories and beliefs, and the tendency to keep proclaiming new ''turns'' in social theory (e.g. Witz, 2000; Alvesson & K. arreman, 2000) are indications of this perception of contemporary developments. The anthology reviewed here, The practice turn in contemporary theory represents an attempt at a critical examination and discussion of the notion of practice in social theory and-something that should come as no surprise-to announce another ''turn'' in social theory. The papers in the volume, emanating from a range of disciplines including sociology, technology and science studies and philosophy, were originally presented at a conference on ''Practices and Social Order'' at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Bielefeld in 1996. Practice is a manifold concept and one could envisage such orientations as Chicago sociology, Bourdieu's theory of practice, Giddens' structuration theory, or de Certeau's study of everyday life practices as complementary strategies exploiting the concept of practice as a key theoretical category. The present anthology offers a great many approaches to the concept of practice and each of the fourteen chapters in the volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of this most multifarious concept. Some of the fourteen chapters in the anthology, selected on a basis of my personal interests and concerns as a student of organization, will be discussed below. The first part of the anthology addresses the problem of ''Practices and Social Order'', the preeminent actor-structure topic in social theory. In this part the relationship between practice and various underlying structural assumptions and beliefs that precede practices is discussed. If practices are to be studied, we have to ask ourselves how they are shared between social actors? How do practices constitute social order? In brief, what are ''shared practices''? The contributors to Part 1 are prone to see the practices of social actors as constituting social order. In Chapter 1, Barry Barnes examines practice as collective action and addresses several of the issues relating to practice as a fundamental social form. Barnes regards practices as collective accomplishments. In Chapter 2 Jeff Coulter discusses how ''macro-social'' phenomena are produced on a basis of individual action. Coulter takes Weber's notion of the Tr. ager, the ''bearer or 'carrier' of patterned action orientation''-exemplified by the Calvinist capitalist turning religious beliefs into the production of wealth in Weber's classic analysis-as the subject underlying the ''macro-social''. A further method for the analysis of macro-social phenomena suggested by Coulter is Herbert Blumer's symbolic interactionism, which aims at a de-reification of social structure. Part 2, ''Inside Practice'', is aimed at shedding some light on the embodiment and psychological aspects of practices. Rather than speaking of mental entities such as beliefs, desires, emotions and purposes, practice theorists use concepts denoting embodied capacities such as know-how, skills, tacit understanding and dispositions.

In recent years the debates on praxeology gradually led to a bifurcation, following the beaten pathways of the division of scientific work. On the one hand, praxeological approaches were received in social theory and comparative theoretical studies. They were seen as theoretical innovations, and assessed and classified accordingly, with regard to their intersections and differences to other theoretical approaches (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996). Most of the foundational approaches to praxeology are closely connected to empirical studies. This applies to Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology, to Erving Goffman's studies of interaction, to Pierre Bourdieu's praxeology and to Bruno Latour's actor-network-theory (ANT). This dominant theoretical strand of practice theory however hardly accounts for the practical problems linked with using praxeological approaches in empirical research. On the other hand, just recently the relevancy and the affordances of praxeology for consulting, advising and policy interventions have been called for and emphasized (Nicolini, 2012; Shove et al., 2012). In the light of this prevailing divergence between theoretical endeavors on the one hand, and applied organizational and political objectives on the other hand, we now run the risk of losing sight of the epistemological and methodological issues at the core of praxeology. To address such issues, this paper focuses on the methodology of praxeology. It suggests a procedure of praxeologizing the objects of inquiry. This procedure is depicted in three steps: Firstly the paper comes up with the empirical example of academic practices of writing, especially of writing social theory. This serves to point out the methodological tasks and empirical challenges of praxeology. It is shown how praxeologizing theoretical writing can highlight particular and novel aspects of this practical and epistemic activity. By empirically studying academic writing practices, praxeology helps to question prevailing approaches in writing studies. Secondly, the epistemological aspects of praxeology are pointed out. It is argued that praxeology, first of all, is concerned with the misrepresentations of doings and practical activities in the theoretical models designed to grasp and to explain them. Referring to Pierre Bourdieu’s discovery of the praxeological mode of epistemology in his ethnographic studies in Algeria, this ‘negative’ and reflexive perspective on social practices is highlighted. In a third step, the paper proceeds to provide a conceptual tool kit for praxeologizing.

Journal of Social Work Practice, 2005

This paper argues that acquiring competencies in different approaches and procedures in qualitative or interpretative social research provides a strong foundation for case analysis in professional social work practice. When students of social work become familiar with such research and are encouraged to engage in their own supervised projects they develop skills for a circumspect and sensitive practice with clients. The paper reports on work with students of social work in Germany, which can be described as an attempt to help them to become self-reflective ethnographers in their own affairs, of their own emergent social work practice. It spells out different phases of a process in which they learn to make their own practice strange. This process consists of developing different competencies in observing, analysing and writing, and requires a setting in which students' written observations and reflections can be shared and discussed by their peers in a critical, egalitarian and supportive manner. The author thinks that such a critical and self-critical discourse which addresses professional issues in general, as well as the individual student's (or practioner's) experiences and reflections, can have important implications for the collective development of social work and its relationship with other professions.

Management Learning, 2009

Practice Methodologies in Education Research

This chapter introduces the notion of activist practice methodologies, illuminated through a focus on education research that is informed by practice theory and framed by an explicitly normative regard for education. It identifies and responds to some of the topographies of expansive practice theories; some of the onto-epistemological challenges these topographies create for researchers; and the relationship between methodologies and axiology, especially within education research where social justice values collide spectacularly with policy discourses around competition, the market and particular framings of evidence. Thus established, the chapter outlines key features of research that deploy theories of practice in pursuit of normative ends, developed in conversation with other chapters in this collection. We theorise that within education research, methodologies informed by expansive practice theories are derived from research axiologies that are activist in intent and that they respond to the ontoepistemological challenges of those same theories. In our account, activist practice methodologies are invested with normative ideals, specifically to advance social justice-in this case, in and through education. This work often involves novel arrangements of theory, new approaches to data, and experimental approaches to research writing. Amid the ontoepistemological angst thrown up by expansive practice theories, activist practice methodologies do not give up on method but persist in developing new ways to apprehend and engage practice. Five interrelated aspects of activist practice methodologies are discussed: activist axiologies; reconstituting the ethical subject in research practice; theory as method; more-than-representational data; and restive accounts of research.