The Dynamics of Social Practice

The seminars is organised around a series of propositions about social practices and how they change. The strategy is to explore a sequence of distinct but related claims, for instance, that practices depend on the active integration of recognisable elements including materials, meanings and forms of competence; that practices recruit carriers willing and able to keep them alive, and that practices compete and support each other in different ways. These somewhat abstract ideas are developed and illustrated with reference to a range of practical cases and examples, most relating to issues of daily life and ordinary consumption. One aim is to show how propositions about practice can be linked together to produce a framework for understanding everyday life and how it changes. A second ambition is to articulate the practical implications of such an approach for policy and for deliberate efforts to change what people do, especially with respect to challenges like those of climate change and sustainability.