5 practice theory

Question 1

who is pierre bourdieu

Answer 1

french anthropology n sociologist. top of french academic system as first gen scholar

Question 2

pierre bourdieu key concern

Answer 2

trying to square subjective experience w objective social conditions

Question 3

pb introduce what

Answer 3

notion of practice as new unit of soc analysis that combines structural conditions with an individual that can shape social situations

Question 4

new unit of social analysis

Answer 4

Practice = (Habitus x Capital) + Field

Question 5

habitus

Answer 5

A durable and transposable disposition to act in certain ways in
social situations, i.e. embodied ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that has
been shaped by the past, particularly socialisation, and the social environment

Question 6

capital

Answer 6

Capitalia are resources at individuals’ disposal:
* Economic capital (money, property, material resources)
* Cultural capital (education, credentials, taste)
* Social capital (networks, relationships)
* Symbolic capital (prestige, recognition)

Question 7

field

Answer 7

A structured social space with its own norms, rules, stakes and forms of
capital, e.g. arts, sports, politics.

Question 8

Why does Bourdieu use the concept of practice?

Answer 8

To understand why specific social situations unfold as they do.

Question 9

What two kinds of elements does Bourdieu combine to explain how situations unfold?

Answer 9

“Dispositional” elements that pre-structure options + “situational” elements that allow acting differently from how things usually go

Question 10

What does it mean that practices have a “logic”?

Answer 10

Practices follow a “way of ‘how things are done around here’.”

Question 11

What does Bourdieu suggest about breaking with the “logic” of practice?

Answer 11

It takes effort to break with that logic.

Question 12

“Think back to the boxer in Rotherham” is a prompt to recall a concrete case from the course that makes Bourdieu’s idea of practice intuitive by showing how a person’s action in a situation is shaped by both dispositions and context.

Answer 12

the boxer’s “normal” ways of perceiving and acting (his habitus/dispositions) interact with what’s possible and rewarded in that setting (the field and available capital), producing a recognizable “logic of practice”—and changing that logic is hard.

Question 13

In practice theory, what are “practices” (Schatzki)?

Answer 13

“Organized spatial-temporal manifolds of human activity.”

Question 14

Give examples of practices mentioned by Schatzki.

Answer 14

Cooking, political, manufacturing, football, dating, horse breeding practice

Question 15

What organizes the activities that compose a practice?

Answer 15

Understandings, rules, and normative teleologies.

Question 16

Are practices just sets of regular actions?

Answer 16

No—“a practice is not a set of regular actions,” but an evolving domain of varied activities linked by common, orchestrated items (e.g., understandings/rules/teleologies).

Question 17

What are “material arrangements” (Schatzki)?

Answer 17

A set of interconnected material entities.

Question 18

What is “the social” in practice theory (Schatzki, as summarized in the course slides)?

Answer 18

A field of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organized around shared practical understanding

Question 18

What four types of entities make up material arrangements?

Answer 18

Humans, artifacts, organisms, and things of nature

Question 19

What key idea about “how things are done” is emphasized in the practice theory slide?

Answer 19

Practices rely on an often tacit understanding of “how things are done around here,” mediated by surroundings/infrastructures (nature, technology, infrastructure).

Question 20

What is “the social” in practice theory (distinct social ontology)?

Answer 20

The social is “a field of embodied, materially interwoven practices centrally organized around shared practical understandings.”

Question 21

What does it mean that the social is embodied?

Answer 21

Human actors have bodies, and these are formed over time (so social life is not just “in the head”)

Question 22

What does it mean that practices are materially interwoven?

Answer 22

The “surroundings” matter—nature, technology, and infrastructure shape how practices happen.

Question 23

What organizes practices “centrally” in this view?

Answer 23

Shared practical understandings

Question 24

What kind of “logic” do practices follow in practice theory?

Answer 24

An often tacit sense of “how things are done around here.”

Question 25

What is included in “how things are done around here”?

Answer 25

Knowledge (know-how, know-that), experience, and elements not rooted within individuals.

Question 26

How can “how things are done around here” be shaped beyond individuals?

Answer 26

It is often mediated by infrastructures

Question 27

How does Schatzki define “practices”?

Answer 27

“Organized spatial-temporal manifolds of human activity.”

Question 28

What organizes the activities within a practice (Schatzki 2010)?

Answer 28

Understandings, rules, and normative teleologies

Question 29

Are practices simply regular/repeated actions?

Answer 29

No. A practice is an evolving domain of varied activities linked by shared, orchestrated items (e.g., understandings, rules).

Question 30

Define “the social” in practice theory in one sentence and include the three key characteristics.

Answer 30

The social is a field of embodied, materially interwoven practices, organized around shared practical understandings.

Question 30

Explain (briefly) why practice theory says “surroundings” matter. Give two examples of surroundings.

Answer 30

Because practices are materially interwoven; nature/technology/infrastructure shape what people can do and how. Examples: technology and infrastructure (also nature).

Question 31

What is meant by the tacit dimension of practice?

Answer 31

Practices follow an often tacit “how things are done around here,” including more than explicit knowledge—also experience and non-individual elements.

Question 32

What is the role of infrastructures in practice theory’s account of social order?

Answer 32

Infrastructures can mediate “how things are done around here,” meaning some organizing elements of practice are not located inside individuals.

Question 33

Distinguish “practice” from “regular action” (Schatzki).

Answer 33

A practice is not a set of regular actions; it’s an evolving domain of varied activities linked by understandings/rules/teleologies

Question 34

In STS (science, technology, society), practice theories are useful in which two ways?

Answer 34

(1) To analyze human agency in conjunction with technologies; (2) as a “guerilla theory” to challenge dominant explanations (e.g., economics/psychology).

Question 35

What is the first STS use of practice theory mentioned on the slide?

Answer 35

Empirical analysis of human agency together with technology (e.g., AI in administration): how the ability to act shifts when AI assistants take on tasks.

Question 36

What is the second STS use of practice theory mentioned on the slide?

Answer 36

Using it as a “guerilla theory” to challenge dominant explanations (such as economics or psychology).

Question 37

Compare how economics, psychology/UCD, and practice theory would evaluate an AI tool introduced to “increase efficiency.”

Answer 37

Economics: cost-cutting. Psychology/UCD: user satisfaction and motivation. Practice theory: how work practices change, redistributed tasks/costs, process effects, ethical issues, and impacts on people

Question 38

Why can practice theory be called a “guerilla theory” in STS?

Answer 38

Because it challenges dominant explanations (e.g., economic or psychological accounts) by focusing on what technologies do to practices in real settings.

Question 39

What does the slide imply practice theory is especially good at (method-wise)?

Answer 39

Empirical analysis of “how people actually work with technology” in practice, including shifts in agency

Question 40

shifts in agency

Answer 40

A “shift in agency” means that the capacity to act, decide, and shape outcomes in a situation is redistributed—often away from a single human actor and across a socio-technical setup (people + tools/algorithms + infrastructures + institutions).

Question 41

In practice theory, when/what are objects and bodies?

Answer 41

Objects/bodies are when and how they are enacted (i.e., they take shape through practice).

Question 41

What does “Nothing precedes or exists outside of practices” mean?

Answer 41

It means practice theory treats practices as the primary reality: phenomena are only intelligible within practices, not as something “prior” to them.

Question 42

What does it mean that objects/bodies are “multiple”?

Answer 42

They can be enacted differently across practices, without becoming unrecognisable

Question 43

Goffman vs practice theory

Answer 43

Goffman focuses on how the self is managed/presented in interactions, whereas practice theory emphasizes how “selves,” bodies, and objects are enacted through practices and materially interwoven arrangements.

Question 44

What is the basic observation about order in everyday life (Ontological Politics slide)?

Answer 44

In everyday life, order tends to reproduce itself.

Question 44

How does the slide define “order” in practice-theoretical terms?

Answer 44

Order is one set of practices manifesting itself, while alternative orders disappear or become latent.

Question 45

What does it mean that alternative orders “disappear or become latent”?

Answer 45

Other ways the world could be organized don’t fully vanish, but they are pushed into the background (latent) while one order becomes dominant/visible

Question 46

What is the central political-ethical question in “ontological politics”?

Answer 46

“Which order becomes manifest,” “which worlds get made,” or “which stories tell stories” (Haraway)

Question 47

Why is “Which worlds get made?” a political and ethical question?

Answer 47

Because making one order/world manifest suppresses or sidelines alternatives—so stakes and responsibilities are involved

Question 48

What is “ontological politics” (definition from course politics session)?

Answer 48

It involves the struggle over which worlds are actualized and which potential worlds are suppressed or disappear.

Question 49

According to the course, why are knowledge/technology production political in this sense?

Answer 49

Because they shape the world in particular ways (they help actualize some worlds rather than others)

Question 50

Give one reason the slide says science is implicated in politics.

Answer 50

Science contributes to making and stabilizing social order (i.e., it helps make particular worlds manifest).

Question 51

What does Haraway’s phrasing “Which stories tell stories?” point to here?

Answer 51

That which narratives/ways of describing and organizing reality become dominant is a political and ethical issue tied to which worlds are made