Social practice theory (SPT) reading group agenda 2013
Date: 2nd Tuesday of the month, beginning February 12th
Time: 12:30-2pm (participants are welcome to bring their lunch)
Conveners: Yolande Strengers & Cecily Maller
Overview
Date
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
February
Theme
Refresher: What is a practice?
Revisiting key theorists: Giddens
Practices and temporality
Theorising media practices
Revisiting flat ontologies, socio-technical regimes and theories of practice
Practice theory perspectives on habit
Discursive practices – language and practice theory
‘New’ methods to study practices: scaling up data collection & quantifying
practices
Revisiting power
Materiality and practice
Revisiting key theorists: Bourdieu
Refresher: What is practice?
Key reading:
Schatzki, TR 2001, 'Introduction: Practice theory', in TR Schatzki, K Knorr Cetina & E Von
Savigny (eds), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, Routledge, New York, USA, 1-14.
Additional readings:
Reckwitz, A 2002, 'Toward a theory of social practices: a development in culturalist theorizing',
Journal of Social Theory, vol. 5, no. 2: 243-63.
Shove, E, Pantzar, M & Watson, M 2012, 'The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and
how it changes', in SAGE, London, UK (Chapter 1)
Schatzki, TR 2002, The Site of the Social: a Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social
Life and Change, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania, USA. (Chapter 2 –
Practices)
Warde, A 2005, 'Consumption and theories of practice', Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 5, no.
2: 131-53.
March
Revisiting key theorists: Giddens
Key reading:
Giddens, A 1991, 'Structuration theory: past, present and future', in CGA Bryant & D Jary (eds),
Giddens' Theory of Structuration: A Critical Appreciation, Routledge, London [UK], 201-21.
Additional readings:
Giddens, A 1984, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Polity
Press, Cambridge, UK
April
Practices and temporality
Key reading:
Fine, GA 1990, 'Organizational Time: Temporal Demands and the Experience of Work in
Restaurant Kitchens', Social Forces, vol. 69, no. 1: 95-114.
Additional reading:
Schatzki, TR 2009, 'Timespace and the organization of social life', in E Shove, F Trentmann &
RR Wilk (eds), Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture, Berg,
Oxford [UK], 35-48.
Southerton, D 2003, ''Squeezing time': allocating practices, coordinating networks and
scheduling society', Time & Society, vol. 12, no. 1: 5-25.
Southerton, D 2006, 'Analysing the temporal organization of daily life: social contsraints,
practices and their allocation', Sociology, vol. 40, no. 3: 435-54.
Hand, M, Shove, E & Southerton, D 2005, 'Explaining Showering: a Discussion of the Material,
Conventional, and Temporal Dimensions of Practice', Sociological Research Online, vol. 10, no.
2.
Pantzar, M & Shove, E 2010, 'Temporal rhythms as outcomes of social practices: a speculative
discussion', Ethnologia Europaea, vol. 40, no. 1: 19-29.
Bittman, M & Wajcman, J 2000, 'The Rush Hour: The Character of Leisure Time and Gender
Equity', Social Forces, vol. 79, no. 1: 165-89.
Trentmann, F 2009, 'Disruption is normal: blackouts, breakdowns and the elasticity of everyday
life', in E Shove, F Trentmann & RR Wilk (eds), Time, Consumption and Everyday Life:
Practice, Materiality and Culture, Berg, Oxford, UK, 67-84.
May
Theorising Media and Practice
Key reading:
Couldry, N 2010, 'Chapter 1: Theorising media as practice', in B Bräuchler & J Postill (eds),
Theorising media and practice, Berghahn Books, New York, USA, 35-54.
Additional readings:
Postill, J 2010, 'Introduction: Theorising media and practice', in B Bräuchler & J Postill (eds),
Theorising media and practice, Berghahn Books, New York, USA, 1-32.
Couldry, N 2012, Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice, Polity Press,
Cambridge.
Postill, J. 2012. Media and social changing since 1979: Towards a diachronic ethnography of
media and actual social changes. Paper to the EASA 2012 biennial conference, Nanterre, Paris,
July 2012.
http://johnpostill.com/2012/07/14/new-paper-media-and-social-changing-since-1979/
http://www.media-anthropology.net/index.php/e-seminars
June
Revisiting flat ontologies, socio-technical regimes and theories of
practice
Key reading:
Schatzki, T. 2011, ‘Where the Action Is (On Large Social Phenomena Such as Sociotechnical
Regimes)’ SPRG Working Paper 1, Lancaster http://www.sprg.ac.uk/uploads/schatzki-wp1.pdf
Additional reading:
Watson, M. 2012 ‘How theories of practice can inform transition to a decarbonised transport
system’, Journal of Transport Geography, 24, 488-496
July
Practice theory perspectives on habit
Key reading:
Shove, E 2012, 'Habits and their creatures', Collegium: Studies across disciplines in the
humanities and social sciences, vol. 12, 100-12.
Additional reading:
Darnton, A, Verplanken, B, White, P & Whitmarsh, L 2011, Habits, Routines and Sustainable
Lifestyles: A summary report to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA), AD Research & Analysis, London, UK.
Bourdieu, P 2005, 'Habitus', in J Hillier & E Rooksby (eds), Habitus: a sense of place, 2nd edn,
Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Harts [England], 43-9.
Warde, A & Southerton, D 2012, 'Introduction: The habits of consumption', Collegium: Studies
across Disciplines in the Humaniities and Social Sciences, vol. 12, 1-25.
Wilhite, H 2012, 'Towards a better accounting of the roles of body, things and habits in
consumption', Collegium: Studies across Disciplines in the Humaniities and Social Sciences, vol.
12, 87-9.
August
Dispersed and discursive practices – language and practice theory
Key reading:
Schatzki, TR 1996, Social Practices: a Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the
Social, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [UK]. – Chapter TBC
Additional reading:
Schatzki, TR 1997, 'Practices and actions: a Wittgensteinian critique of Bourdieu and Giddens',
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 27, no. 3: 283-308.
September
‘New’ methods to study practices: scaling up data collection &
quantifying practices
Key reading:
Southerton, D, Olsen, W, Warde, A & Cheng, S-L 2012, 'Practices and trajectories: A
comparative analysis of reading in France, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA',
Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 237-62.
Additional readings:
Browne, A. Anderson, B. Medd, W. Pullinger, M. ‘Scaling ‘practice’: Reflections on demand
management and climate change research and policy for the UK water industry, Beyond
Behaviour Change Symposium, Melbourne
October
Revisiting power
Key reading:
Hacking, I 1982, 'Biopower and the avalanch of printed numbers', Humanities in Society, vol. 5,
279-95.
Additional reading:
Foucault
November
Materiality and practice
Key reading:
Hui, A 2012, 'Things in motion, things in practices: How mobile practice networks facilitate the
travel and use of leisure objects', Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 12, no. 2: 195-215.
Additional reading:
Schatzki, T 2010, 'Materiality and Social Life', Nature and Culture, vol. 5, no. 2: 123-49.
Pierce, J & Paulos, E 2010, 'Materializing energy', paper presented to Proceedings of the 8th
ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, Aarhus, Denmark.
Strengers, Y & Maller, C 2012, 'Materialising energy and water resources in everyday practices:
Insights for securing supply systems', Global Environmental Change, vol. 22, no. 3: 754-63.
Hawkins, G & Race, K 2011, 'Bottle water practices: reconfiguring drinking in Bangkok
households', in R Lane & A Gorman-Murray (eds), Material geographies of household
sustainability, Ahgate, Farnham, UK, 113-24.
December
Revisiting key theorists: Bourdieu
Key reading:
Bourdieu, P 1977, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
(Chapter TBC)
Additional reading:
Bourdieu, P 1998, Practical Reason, Stanford University Press, Stanford [UK].
Bourdieu, P 2005, 'Habitus', in J Hillier & E Rooksby (eds), Habitus: a sense of place, 2nd edn,
Ashgate Publishing Ltd, Harts [England], 43-9.
Wilk, RR 2002, 'Consumption, human needs, and global environmental change', Global
Environmental Change, vol. 12, 5-13.
Sterne, J 2003, 'Bourdieu, technique and technology', Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 3/4: 367-89.
Power, EM 1999, 'An introduction to Pierre Bourdieu's key theoretical concepts', Journal for the
Study of Food and Society, vol. 3, no. 1: 48-52.