This document discusses practice theory, a sociological perspective developed in Europe in the 1970s. It examines how theories relate to contexts through factors like audiences, infrastructures, and politics. Practice theory focuses on how groups adopt and adapt to structures through tactics and strategies. Later contributions connected practice theory to concepts like skills, images, and stuff, viewing practices as both performances and entities. The document considers how practice theory relates performance and entity and possible future directions, including through assemblage theory and governmentality.

1. Practice theory in context
thomas.berker@ntnu.no
KULT & ZEB

2. Looking at theories
• The helicopter’s eyes
• Looking at specific relations between
theories, theorists, audiences,
infrastructures, discourses, economics,
politics, etc. to describe and explain a
theory’s relevance in different contexts

3. Where does PT come from
• A specific sociological perspective
originally developed in Europe in the
1970s that seeks to transcend common
reductionisms:
– Social structural
– Technological
– Psychological
– Economical
“Human factor”
Systems

4. What does P do?
• Productive research on
– Inconspicuous ways of adopting of and
adapting to structures (“tactics and strategies”,
“encoding/decoding”, “domestication”)
– Groups instead of individuals or “the whole
society”: Communities (of practice), social
worlds, households, shared lifestyles, etc.

5. Shove’s (et al.) contribution
• The triplet Skills/Images/Stuff connects to a
broad variety of research communities and
theoretical schools, e.g. social
anthropology, STS, organization science,
traditional sociology, media studies, etc.
• Practice as “performance” but also as
“entity”
– Promises to be able to “scale up”
– Preserves the original preference for
contingency and complexity

6. Future directions?
• How exactly are performance and entity
related?
– Structural readings
– Individualist readings
• Current contenders: ANT, assemblage
theory, non-representational theory,
governmentality/technologies of the self

7. Future directions?
• How exactly are performance and entity
related?
– Structural readings
– Individualist readings
• Current contenders: ANT, assemblage
theory, non-representational theory,
governmentality/technologies of the self