Practice theory

Dissertation: Domestic Artifacts, Political Practices: An Archaeology of Women’s Reform Efforts and the Home, 1854-1939

by Kim Christensen

Continuing professional development through reflexive networks: Disrupting online communities of practice

by Gurmit Singh

Singh, G., McPherson, M. & Sandars, J. (2012). Continuing professional development through reflexive networks: Disrupting online communities of practice. Paper presented at ProPEL International Conference 2012, University of Stirling, UK, May 2012.

Taste Regimes and Market-Mediated Practice

by Zeynep Arsel

Co-authored with Jonathan Bean. Forthcoming in Feb 2013.

Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily... more Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily practice. In this paper, we develop a practice-based framework of taste through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a popular home design blog, interviews with blog participants, and participant observation. First, we define a taste regime as a discursively constructed normative system that orchestrates practice in an aesthetically oriented culture of consumption. Taste regimes are perpetuated by marketplace institutions such as magazines, web sites and transmedia brands. Second, we show how a taste regime regulates practice through continuous engagement. By integrating three dispersed practices—problematization, ritualization, and instrumentalization—a taste regime shapes preferences for objects, the doings performed with objects, and what meanings are associated with objects. This study demonstrates how aesthetics is linked to practical knowledge and becomes materialized through everyday consumption.

Between the Real and Ideal. Ordering, controlling and utilising space in power negotiations: Hall buildings in Scandinavia, 250-1050 CE

by Marianne Hem Eriksen

Electronic version of my unpublished master's thesis from the University of Oslo, May 2010

The Scandinavian hall building was a constructional and social innovation which emerged sometime in the Early Iron... more The Scandinavian hall building was a constructional and social innovation which emerged sometime in the Early Iron Age; most scholars agree that it occurred in the second half of the Roman Period. The thesis examines the ordering, control and utilisation of space expressed through the Scandinavian hall buildings c. 250 – 1050 CE. The power relations of the Scandinavian Iron Age society are in the thesis interpreted as expressed through the hall buildings and their placement in a both genuine and cognitive landscape. The buildings’ construction, the finds related to the buildings, and the mythological ideas of the buildings are related to power struggle and power negotiations in the Iron Age societies. A recurrent theme throughout the thesis is the reciprocity between the built environment and the agents therein, as well as a focus on the biography of the hall buildings. Other important aspects discussed is the strong connection between the hall and the dead, the use of space as a differentiating factor between social groups, and the hall as an arena for rituals, transformation and liminality, differentiation and negotiation.

Keywords: Hall, cultic buildings, Iron Age, mythology, power, spatial ordering, communication, landscape, biography, practice theory.

2009, « Habitus, Freedom and Reflexivity », in Theory and Psychology Volume 19, no. 6, pp. 728-755.

by Mathieu Hilgers

The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is... more The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is an essential and necessary component for the coherence of the analyses which mobilize habitus both in terms of their theoretical articulation and in terms of their grounding in empirical reality. This argument can seem surprising considering that the theory of habitus has often been accused of being deterministic. Yet I show that, from an epistemological point of view, habitus theory is not deterministic. Bourdieu’s treatment of this concept implies at least three principles that exclude determinism: (1) the production of an infinite number of behaviors from a limited number of principles, (2) permanent mutation, and (3) the intensive and extensive limits of sociological understanding. After identifying and describing these principles, I show the reason for their incompatibility with a deterministic perspective and consider their implications for the corresponding model of action. I illustrate this analysis by a discussion of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology of the pugilistic universe which reveals why it is essential to understand and explain the relation between habitus and freedom.

“Habitus-Validity in Organisational Theory and Research – Social Research and Work Life Transformed”, Chapter 1

by Olav Eikeland

Chapter 1, pp.33-66 in Brøgger, Benedicte and Eikeland, Olav (eds.) (2009): Turning to Practice with Action Research, Frankfurt a.M., Peter Lang Publishers

Chapter 1. Olav Eikeland: Habitus-validity in organisational theory and research – social research and work life... more Chapter 1. Olav Eikeland: Habitus-validity in organisational theory and research – social research and work life transformed. This chapter introduces the concept of “habitus-validity”, based on the Aristotelian concept of habitus or héxis, established within social research over the last decades through the infl uence of Pierre Bourdieu. Action research requires ways of thinking about validity different from and apparently incompatible with mainstream concepts of validity, whether quantitative, qualitative, explanatory, or interpretive. The article presents and discusses the role of habitus-validity in the development of both practical and theoretical knowledge. Habitus-validity tries to conceptualize knowledge validity in ways relevant for action research, especially for an action research strengthened through a critical confrontation with the requirements and shortcomings of mainstream research methods. The concept of habitus validity is presented as the outcome of such a critical confrontation or immanent critique. The discussion springs from the author’s experience through more than 20 years of conducting projects in action research and organizational learning in Norwegian work life and an equivalent number of years of studying conventional methodology, epistemology, and philosophy of science critically.

Turning Practically: Broadening the Horizon

by Olav Eikeland

Introduction by Olav Eikeland and Davide Nicolini to Special Issue of Journal of Organizational Change Management,pp. 164-174, Vol.24, No. 2, 2011, on Changing Practice Through Reflection

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles... more Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, positioning the articles in relation to the current “turn to practice” within organisation and management studies.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces a schematic classification of ways of putting practice at the centre of the concern of social scientists depending on the interest of the researcher and his/her position with regard to the object of the research.

Findings – The paper finds that turning to practice does not necessarily, or simply, equate with becoming more engaged, or with making social science relevant, or with moving social science closer to the practical concerns of separate practitioners. It is argued that the effort should be concentrated on developing a type of theory that helps practitioners articulate what they already do, and therefore somehow know. The model for this way of theorising would therefore be not physics or astronomy but rather grammar – a discipline that although just as old, has been based traditionally on a very different relationship between knower and known.

Practical implications – The paper argues that when conceived after a grammatical model, “theory” may become a resource to be used in action and for action to produce emancipatory awareness and trigger change through critical reflection.

Originality/value – The papers in this special issue constitute an initial contribution in this direction as they indicate different ways in which theory, when developed “with” and “amid” and not “for” or even “about” practitioners, may become a powerful trigger of change and transformation.

Understanding Documentary Practice: Lessons Learnt from the Text Encoding Initiative

by Susan Williams

Please cite this paper as:
Scifleet, P. and Williams, S.P. (2011) Understanding Documentary Practice: Lessons Learnt from the Text Encoding Initiative. Theory and Practice
S. Gradmann et al. (Eds.): TPDL 2011, LNCS 6966, pp. 272–283. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

How are definitions of content and the design of digital documents being determined in practice? In this paper the... more How are definitions of content and the design of digital documents being determined in practice? In this paper the authors present the relationship between document encoder and document as the central unit of analysis in a framework for making sense of documentary practice at community, organisational and implementation levels. The paper presents the integrated findings from a global survey of document encoders participating in the Text Encoding Initiative, providing important insights into the characteristics of an emergent documentary practice. By focusing on documentation as a field of practice the paper reveals a rich and generative practice at play and provides valuable lessons for other complex metadata and markup initiatives.

Consumer Workers as Immaterial Labor in the Converging Media Markets: Three Value Creation Practices

by Johanna Moisander

co authored with Saara Könkkölä and Pikka-Maaria Laine; forthcoming in International Journal of Consumer Studies

This paper takes a practice-based approach to consumer studies and focuses on the strategic and productive roles that... more This paper takes a practice-based approach to consumer studies and focuses on the strategic and productive roles that consumers play as immaterial labor or consumer workers in the converging media markets. Based on a case study of a print media organization and its customers, the aim is to discuss the collaborative practices through which value is created in the market. By means of a textual analysis of online and interview data, three value-creation practices are abstracted and illustrated: constructing a sense of belonging and collective identity, mutual helping and peer support, and building pride and self-respect. Overall, the paper suggests that in global media environments, consumer-customers are playing increasingly significant strategic roles in the practices and processes through which value is co-created in the market. It is therefore concluded that the idea of consumers, and media audiences in particular, as recipients of communication and targets of marketing activities needs to be problematized and the dynamic strategic roles that consumers currently play in the market need to be acknowledged and actively incorporated into the business praxis of media corporations.

Change and Continuity, Practice and Memory: Native American persistence in colonial New England

by Stephen Silliman

Published in: American Antiquity [2009]

Doing islandness: a non-representational approach to an island’s sense of place

by Phillip Vannini

Co-authored with Jonathan Taggart

This paper presents both an empirical characterization and a theoretical treatment of an island as practice. Through... more This paper presents both an empirical characterization and a theoretical treatment of an island as practice. Through video and ethnographic description we describe and interpret how one kind of islandness is done. Thus we understand islandness corporeally, affectually, practically, intimately, as a visceral experience. Basing our conceptual treatment on the non-representational idea of dwelling, we approach place as a kind of practice. We view the key performances through which an island becomes such as practices of incorporation. Inhabitants, we believe, incorporate a place not by way of mental design or blueprints, or by way of signifying comparisons and juxtapositions, but rather by sheer practical, creative, skillful engagement with its affordances. Thus we understand the practices of an islander as someone who assembles together an island by way of making use of whatever is at hand, solving going concerns as they present themselves.

Read more: http://publicethnography.net/projects/it-me-or-does-paper-move

Turning to practice - what does it mean and why is it important

by Olav Eikeland

The Emergence of Tiwanaku: Domestic Practices and Regional Traditions at Khonkho Wankane and Kk’araña

by Erik Marsh

This link is to the large (92 MB), uncompressed version of the Dissertation.

This version has high res images, while the other version's compressed images are at times lacking. This version has high res images, while the other version's compressed images are at times lacking.

Practice Theory in Folklore and Folklife Studies

by Simon Bronner

Appeared in the journal FOLKLORE, vol. 123 (April 2012).

The circulation of techniques for violence and the role of materiality in Randal Collins’s violence theory

by Paolo Magaudda

"Sociologica" N. 2/2011

m. fl.(2002): When Theories Become Tools: Toward a Framework for Pragmatic Validity

by Nicolay Worren

http://hum.sagepub.com/content/55/10/1227.abstract

In this article we discuss the characteristics of knowledge that lead to practical utility. We first review previous... more In this article we discuss the characteristics of knowledge that lead to practical utility. We first review previous efforts at identifying the characteristics of useful knowledge. These contributions are grouped into three perspectives according to which representational mode they imply: propositional, narrative, or visual. We develop a framework for pragmatic validity that encompasses knowledge represented in all three modes. However, we also note an over-reliance on the propositional mode in academia, which contrasts with a preference for narrative and visual knowledge among practitioners. Explicit and propositional knowledge are key criteria for achieving scientific validity, but more ambiguous knowledge serves important functions in organizational life and may thus possess pragmatic validity. We highlight the role of conceptual models expressed in a visual format, a representational mode that has received little attention in the literature. We end with suggestions for further research that may extend the notion of pragmatic validity and lead to a more refined framework for the development of useful knowledge.

Sensing the Rhythms of Everyday Life

by Terra Edwards

Landscape and Memory: an Archaeology of Boston’s Chinatown

by Alexander Keim

More Than Furs: The Social Dynamics of the French-Algonquian Fur Trade in the Illinois Country

by Alexander Keim

Practice-Based Ontologies: A New Approach to Address the Challenges of Ontology and Knowledge Representation in History and Archaeology

by Emad Khazraee

Co-authored with Khoo, M.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2011, Volume 240, Part 4, 375-386.

Data production in history and archaeology far outpaces data processing. In order to apply computers to this problem,... more Data production in history and archaeology far outpaces data processing. In order to apply computers to this problem, historical data must be converted to machine-readable forms. This process is easy for domains of
knowledge that have explicit terminology, but history and archaeology lack these characteristics. This study therefore proposes a phenomenological approach to requirements gathering for knowledge representation and ontology systems for historians and archaeologists. The approach utilizes qualitative and ethnographic research methods to gather data on practitioners’ reasoning and knowledge practices. The design requirements for ontology design can beextracted from the ‘thick description’ produced by this process, and used to build ‘practice-based ontologies.’ This paper presents the theoretical framework and early outcomes of ethnographic research with archaeologists in practice at the University of Pennsylvania.