Seminar-Series:
DIST Special Interest Group (SIG) on
theories of practice and their multiplicity
in focus, aim and use.
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.
This SIG will be facilitated as a seminar-series. Each seminar will run on a Thursday afternoon at
14:00-16:00, and it will have this approximate form:
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Short introduction to the day, by Charlotte.
30 minutes presentation by presenter
60 minutes open Q&A, which will be facilitated. Facilitator (Charlotte) 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 so far:
Kick of seminar: 11/9-14, 14:00-16:00, tba.
Second seminar: 23/10-14 room tba
Third seminar: 13/11-14 room tba
Fourth seminar: 04/12-14 room tba
Fifth seminar: 15/1-15 room tba
Sixth seminar: 26/2-15 room tba
Seventh seminar: 12/3-15 room tba
Program for the Seminar-Series Fall 2014 (presenters and topics)
The Seminar-Series is meant to be ongoing and developed through time, but to get things going
the current SIG team as put together a program with different topics that will run through the fall
2014. The dates and topics of the seminars are as following:
11/9- 2014: Kick-off Seminar: Practice Theory - A New research Agenda
The first seminar will give a general introduction to theories of practice, and will be given by
Anders Buch, who will be presenting on the following topic:
“A basic introduction to Practice Theory as an intellectual tradition and highlight some of the
fundamental philosophical, theoretical and methodological presumptions shared within the
tradition.”
23/10-14: Culture as a series of practices
The second seminar will be given by Iben Jensen, who will be presenting on the following topic:
“The concept of culture has historically and currently been one of the most powerful words in our
language. With the concept of culture we have categorized and ‘othered’ social groups most often
related to nationality, ethnicity or tribes. Most of these categorisation strategies have been
evolved from the idea of homogeneity inside the social group. However, living in globalized,
complex societies the demand for theoretical informed analytical tools are growing. The aim of the
lecture is to explore how culture from the perspective of practice theory can be used as an
analytical tool in globalized, complex societies. The key challenges which will be addressed are as
follows: Which conceptual and analytical consequences does a practice theoretical approach on
culture have? How do we use this approach empirically?”
13/11-14: Practice studies in the Medical Field
The third seminar will be given by Kristian Larsen, who will be presenting on the following topic:
“Practice in different fields seems to be changing very fast. But if we look at practice at a deeper
level from observational studies, we will observe that things are rather stable and "cultures" are
reproduced. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieus concepts field, positions, capital, habitus and his theory
of practice we will here present and discuss stability and change in the medical field and field of
nursing research.“
04/12-14: Energy consumption as consequences of every day practices.
The fourth seminar will be given by Kirsten Gram-Hanssen, who will be presenting on the
following topic:
“Practice theories have in recent years become quite widespread within sustainable consumption
studies as it highlight the routinized aspects of everyday practices rather than focus on possible
relations to and impact from environmental attitudes. Also the practice theory approach help
illuminate how changes in practices over time often drive consumption in an unsustainable
direction following by changes in common norms and understandings. In this lecture I will
empirically and theoretically go deeper into how we can understand and work with these
collectively changing norms and what it means from an environmental policy perspective.
Empirical cases will focus on households’ energy consumption.”
15/01-15: A Dilemma Approach to Practice Research
The fifth seminar will be given by Vibeke Andersen, who will be presenting on the following topic:
“Decentralization, self-management, self-government, de-bureaucratization, quality control and
user influence – all these terms have been used over and over again, when studies are made,
analyzing processes of modernization in the public sector. In my lecture I will pick up on a case
study I made earlier in my research which focused on four different public organizations, focusing
the dilemmas facing the professional employees. I will reanalyze it and reflect upon the
conclusions made at that time – how do I understand the research questions we made at that time
– how would I ask new questions. What do the dilemmas look like today and is the dilemma
approach an appropriate approach to work with from a practice perspective? The talk therefore
not only focuses on practices at a societal level, but also specifically goes on to explore practices
on levels of the individual and groups, by taking point of departure in highly educated
professionals and profession- and expert cultures.”
•
Ekstra nøgleord: afsæt i Marx, Mendner, Braverman, Kern& Shuman – som i 70´erne betød
en vending mod materialitet og teknologi – og ikke mindst arbejdspraksis i gøren og talen.
26/02-15: How Matter Matters – Posthumanism and Practice Theory
The sixth seminar will be given by Stine Willum Adrian, who will be presenting on the following
topic:
“Over the last decade we have witnessed an increasing interest in the topic of materiality. ‘The
interpretative turn’ and ‘The linguistic turn’ in the social sciences and the humanities seems to
have been followed by a ‘Turn to materiality’. In this workshop we will discuss some significant
approaches that stress the role of materiality in accounting for practices.”
12/03-15: Dynamics of practices and the role of translation.
The seventh seminar will be given by Charlotte Louise Jensen, who will be presenting on the
following topic:
“Practices are performed by people as carriers of practices, but practices are also inherently
dependent on and shaped by existing material arrangements (Schatzki, 2011) and infrastructures
(Watson, 2012). Performance of practices and their interaction with material arrangements are
therefore crucial to understand in order to approach dynamics of and potential for change. In
order for a practice to be performed, links made between certain elements of practice are crucial.
Existing practice theoretical literature give convincing accounts for how current practices are
reproduced due to links between certain elements of practice, however, it leaves room for further
explorations in terms of how these links actually come about. As a number of recent practice
theoretical accounts are already drawing on notions from STS (Schatzki 2011, Shove et al 2012,
Nicolini 2012), it seems ontologically meaningful to follow in that direction. As Nicolini (2012)
points to, looking further into the sociology of translation may be meaningful in order to
understand how certain links between certain elements of practice are established. In doing so,
“tracing analytically the work that goes into making associations come about, and observing the
effect produced by the ensuing socio-technical arrangement” (Nicolini,2012) is a useful starting
point. Opening up for how people are ‘recruited’ to certain practices, enhancing and enforcing
certain links between elements, looking towards Callons sociology of translation and the notions
of interessement and enrollment processes (Callon, 1986) are interesting to call on when trying to
understand the dynamics of changing practices.”