Criterios de evaluación

While many varieties of practice theory exist, there are points of convergence among (Reckwitz, 2002). First, practices can be understood as coordinated entities, or in Schatzki’s words, a ‘temporally unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of doings and sayings’ (1996; 89). Important to note here is that practices consist of both doings and sayings, suggesting that a practice-based perspective should be concerned with both practical activity and representations (Warde, 2005). To say that these doings and sayings

‘hang together’ to formulate a nexus suggests a level of coordination, which occurs in time and space.

A practice, according to Reckwitz’s (2002) oft-cited definition is;

‘a routinized type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental

understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge. A practice – a way of cooking, of consuming, of working, of investigating, of taking care of oneself or of others, etc. – forms so to speak a ‘block’ whose existence necessarily depends on the existence and specific interconnectedness of these elements, and which cannot be reduced to any one of these single elements’

(Reckwitz, 2002; 249) From this definition it is clear that a practice can be seen as the coming together of interconnected elements to form a routinized pattern or ‘block’ of activity. Practices contain within them forms of bodily and mental knowledge that are embodied within practitioners, who, through performance, perpetuate (and potentially transform) the practices that they ‘carry’. As such, there is a recursive relation between recognisable doings that are relatively stable (practice-as-entity) and the carrying out of a practice (practice-as-performance), in which people, in the form of ‘bodies/minds’ (Reckwitz, 2002), play a key role as carriers and performers of practice.

Along with the aforementioned embodied components, Reckwitz’ description explicitly accounts for the central role of materials or ‘things’ in the performance and reproduction of practices (Halkier, Katz-Gerro, & Martens, 2011). In developing his own ‘ideal type’

of practice theory, Reckwitz argued that earlier practice theorists had not adequately accounted for the material dimension of social practices, especially in light of the explosion of technical artefacts, such as computers, mobile phones, tablets and so on, in contemporary society (Spaargaren, 2006). Within this conceptualisation, materials, things, technologies and infrastructures are conceptualised as active elements of practice in their own right. This has been of key importance to the development of practice theories as we know them today, and in particular, their application to studies of consumption. Practices are thus not purely social, given that much of social life is intertwined with material infrastructures, devices and artefacts that configure and co-constitute much of what we do (Shove & Walker, 2014).

Despite its usefulness, the above formulation of practice is difficult to apply empirically (Spaargaren, 2006) due its ‘idealized’ and ‘abstract’ nature (Warde, 2005). Shove, Pantzar

& Watson (2012) however, provide a somewhat more straightforward conceptualisation

Materials, which include objects, technologies, bodies and infrastructures Competencies, which encompass both tacitly and formally learned knowledge

and skills

Meanings, which encompass cultural conventions, social expectations, and symbolic meanings

To provide an illustrative example of the three element model at work, in what follows, I will briefly discuss it in relation to the practice of laundering. The material element of laundry practices includes appliances and equipment (e.g. washing machine, tumble dryer, drying racks, clothing line, irons and ironing boards), consumables (e.g. fabric detergents and conditioners), and domestic infrastructures (e.g. plumming and electrics). Knowledge of when and how often to launder is obviourly needed (competencies), and the necessary skills include, being able to recognise when clothes are dirty or in need of washing, and possessing the knowledge to adequately operate the appliances and equipment for washing, drying and ironing. Finally, these skills are intrinsically linked to cultural conventions of cleanliness (meanings), along with the related notions of freshness and hygiene, which have gradually led to increases in the frequency of laundering over time (see Shove 2003). These elements are linked together by individuals when carrying out a practice. While laundering is a widely shared practice however, not everyone launders in the same way; practices are internally differentiated (Warde, 2005) according to the particular configurations of different materials, meanings and competencies at hand.

As is evident in the above example, the three components of Shove and colleagues’ (2012) framework are broad categorisations containing a variety of aspects that are prone to overlap. Shove, Pantzar and Watson defend their decision to put forward their condensed framework by asserting that such a simple formulation is empirically useful, particularly when conceptualising stability and change, as it does so in a way that highlights the recursive relation between the performance of practices (i.e. practice-as-performance) and the organisation of practices (i.e. practice-as-entity). Indeed, by focusing on the interactions between the three elements of practice, Shove and colleagues assert that researchers can identify ‘careers’ of practice through time, from their infancy to their

‘fossilisation’ (Shove & Pantzar, 2005). Careers in this sense can be understood to consist of a series of recognised stages through which a practice develops. Practices form when,

are sustained, the practice persists, if these links are broken however, the practice withers and dies, as skills are lost and the infrastructures and configurations of social life that made them possible change (Hui & Spurling, 2013). In this way we can see that the careers of practices-as-entities depend upon the performances of carriers, which change over time as ‘individuals are constantly taking up and dropping out of different practices as their lives unfold’ (Shove, Pantzar & Watson, 2012; 66). As such, the careers of practices are intimately bound with the careers of carriers; and it is ‘by following the careers of carriers as commitments develop and wane [that] we get a sense of how some practices become more deeply anchored and embedded in society while others disappear’ (Shove, Pantzar

& Watson, 2012; 64). As such, this perspective offers two ways of engaging with practice change through time; the first, focuses on the careers of practices-as-entities, and the second focuses on an individuals’ engagement in careers-in-practice over biographical time.