Seminar-Series-Continued:
The DIST Special Interest Group on
‘Theories of practice and their multiplicity
in focus, aim and use’ E2015-F2016
We are very pleased to inform that The DIST Special Interest Group on ‘Theories of practice and
their multiplicity in focus, aim and use’ will continue for the fall 2015 and hopefully the spring
2016. The SIG has had great success since we started it in the fall 2014, and we have offered 8
seminars and a special event featuring Silvia Gheradi so far. It is therefore with great pleasure, that
we are able to provide 5 planned seminars this coming fall, including 1 SPECIAL EVENT seminar
featuring Dr. Yolande Strengers. We would like to extent an open call for presentations for spring
2016 – if you would like to present your work, please let us know, by emailing
cjensen@plan.aau.dk. Further, we have a few special events in the pipeline for 2016 – stay tuned
for updates.
Sincerely,
Anders and Charlotte
Aim and background of the SIG:
The practice theoretical turn in much cultural-material research is getting more and more
attention in various research fields and disciplines. For DIST as a research center focusing broadly
on Design, Innovation and Sustainability, there are endless possibilities to discuss how and why
theories of practice are relevant to apply, but also to discuss where it may be less appropriate to
apply.
The DIST SIG on theories of practice is therefore meant to facilitate a forum, where researchers
can meet, listen, learn and discuss about theories of practice in relation to a number of DIST
related fields of research.
Format
Each seminar will run on a Thursday afternoon at 14:00-16:00 (with exception of some of the
special events). The seminars are informal, but, if no other format is preferred, run
approximately as follows:
 30 minutes presentation by presenter
 60 minutes open Q&A, which will be facilitated. Facilitator (Charlotte/Anders) will also
prepare questions, to ignite discussion if needed.
 30 minutes open time for people to talk together about more specific topics that have
been inspired by the seminar, and to share thoughts, ideas and potential collaboration
opportunities.
The dates and presenters, Fall 2015:
17/09-2015 14:00-16:00 room CPH ACM15 2.3.002a (TANT LAB)
Boris Andersen: Practices Theory at work: Young people’s Cooking and Food habits researched
in a practices theoretical perspective.
Summary: The presentation will fall into two parts: First part will consist of an introduction to my
research project on young people's cooking practice – "The pleasure of cooking: What motivates
adolecents two cook; and how is their cooking practice situated in their everyday life " - with a
focus on the way in which I have used the practice theoretical perspective for my research. As part
of this introduction, I treat the central challenges that have appeared as a result of my research;
how a ‘cooking practice’ should and could be demarcated in relation to the young people's other
everyday activities.
The second part of the presentation will provide a discussion of some theoretical issues of a
broader relevance to the work of practice theory. It will be based on some of the questions
treated by Allan Warde in his article "Aftertaste: Culture, consumption and theories of practice"
(2014). During this discussion, I will focus on three different, essential topics; namely: a.
Materiality/body/sociality, b. Routines/norms/(free) will and c. Theory/empirical data/everydaylife perspective.
SPECIAL EVENT 5/10-2015 13:00-15:00 room CPH ACM15 2.3.002a (TANT LAB)
Yolande Strengers: Pets, automated devices and weather: dynamic non-humans in theories of
practice
Summary: Pets and automated devices: non-human energy consumers in theories of practice
We live in societies increasingly characterised by the blurring of human and digital systems.
Contemporary energy issues such as the humanisation of pets and automated 'smart' homes, call
for focused reflection of the human entanglements with the 'material' or non-human world.
Post-humanist theories of practice have attempted to grapple with the materialities of social life.
Objects, infrastructures, food and things have been variously understood as 'elements' of (Shove
et al.) or 'participants' in (Reckwitz) social practices, or the 'arrangements' (Schatzki) which
coordinate and constitute the 'plenum' of social life. However, less attention has been paid to nonhumans that transcend the accepted boundaries or properties of materials. The human-like
agencies of pets and robotic vaccum cleaners, for example, challenge traditional notions of the
'material' in contemporary social research, potentially performing practices in their own right. This
understanding has important implications for government and industry aims to reduce household
energy demand, by questioning who, or what, has agency as an energy 'consumer'.
This presentation will draw on empirical research with Australian households to reflect on the role
of dynamic non-humans (pets and automated devices) in theories of practice. In particular, it will
ask whether there is scope to understand some non-humans not only as elements of or
participants in practices, but as performers in their own right. More provocatively, is it possible for
a practice to be performed (and/or transformed) without any humans at all? The presentation will
conclude by reflecting on what these theoretical possibilities mean for contemporary
understandings of the consumer in energy demand research and programs.
Dr Yolande Strengers is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT
University, Australia, where co-leads the Beyond Behaviour Change Research Program. Yolande is
currently undertaking a 3-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship on the automated smart home. She is author of Smart
Energy Technologies in Everyday Life (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) and co-editor (with Cecily Maller)
of Social Practices, Interventions and Sustainability (Routledge 2014).
29/10-2015 14:00-16:00 room CPH ACM15 2.3.002a (TANT LAB)
Rikke Premer: Practicing and Changing Engineering Design
Summary: Engineering design is essential in our contemporary societies. But does our ways of
understanding and educating engineering designers sufficiently prepare them for the complex
challenges they will meet in their occupation?
This presentation is based on my PhD thesis, and offers a novel practice theoretical perspective on
the intricate relations in-between and across education and occupation on a journey through four
Danish sites of engineering design. Drawing on engineering studies and organisational studies the
journey offers to nuance the understanding of what engineering design involves and the
challenges faced when attempting to move the engineering design field forward. Recognising the
complex sociomaterial elements of practicing and changing engineering design does not provide
answers but rather understandings of how and why design practices are carried out as they are in
the everyday life of students and professionals alike.
19/11-2015 14:00-16:00 room CPH ACM15 2.3.002a (TANT LAB)
Anne Katrine Braagaard Harders: Obdurate Infrastructures and Obstinate Practices: A practice
theoretical study of urban development projects between vision and reality
Summary: The aim of this project is to contribute to a better understanding of barriers and
potentials for urban development projects’ role in a sustainable transition of our society. Many
urban development projects are based on a vision for sustainability. But the realization of visions is
not happening on an empty sheet. Cities are complex matters already occupied by existing
infrastructures and practices that are not easy to change. These (often unsustainable)
infrastructures and practices – from professional to everyday practices – have emerged over
decades. Changing just one aspect, e.g. the amount of car parking, requires a re-configuration of
all the infrastructures and practices related hereto. When making decisions crucial to a project’s
outcome many other factors that visions for sustainability are thus in play. The question is then,
how the actions for sustainable transition can be embedded in these decision-making processes.
10/12-2015 14:00-16:00 room CPH ACM15 2.3.002a (TANT LAB) Christmas Special
Anders Buch: Social practices are the producers of difference – not least within the educational
sector.
Summary: “Through the doings and sayings of educators, administrators, and students themselves
differences are produced as to how students are envisioned, how interaction with students are
performed, etc. In addition material arrangements and infrastructures sediment, channel,
prefigure, facilitate or hamper the social practices in producing differences. Social practices and
material arrangements are thus closely intertwined and crystalize into practice-arrangementbundles that, in turn, form larger constellations that encompass more practices and larger arrays
of material arrangements. The flat ontology of practice theory envisions the dynamics amongst
social practices and between social practices and material arrangements as indeterminate,
contingent relations that are malleable by actor’s ends and projects, but also by physical and
biological causation (e.g. Schatzki 2002). In understanding the production of difference in the
educational sector practice theory claims that these subtle relational dynamics must be discerned.
Recently practice theoretical scholars have suggested adopting the metaphor of ‘ecology’ to
highlight the interrelatedness and interdependencies in constellations of practices bundles and
material arrangements (Kemmis et al. 2012, Kemmis et al. 2014). Here the notion of ‘ecology’ is
unfolded in order to better understand the perseverance and inertia in educational practices and
eventually suggest change strategies.
Building on this suggestion this presentation critically examines the concept of ‘ecology’ to
evaluate its merits for practice theory – mainly through the resources of Gregory Bateson’s notion
of a ‘difference that makes a difference’. It further extends the discussion by reflecting on Joseph
Rouse’s naturalistic development of practice theory and his notion ‘niche construction’ (2014 and
forthcoming)."