Outline of a Theory of Practice.
About: This article is published in Contemporary Sociology.The article was published on 1980-03-01. It has received 14683 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Practice theory.
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TL;DR: A growing body of interdisciplinary research is integrated to reveal how social class culture cycles operate over the course of the lifespan and through critical gateway contexts, including homes, schools, and workplaces, which can fuel and perpetuate inequality.
Abstract: America’s unprecedented levels of inequality have far-reaching negative consequences for society as a whole. Although differential access to resources contributes to inequality, the current review illuminates how ongoing participation in different social class contexts also gives rise to culture-specific selves and patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. We integrate a growing body of interdisciplinary research to reveal how social class culture cycles operate over the course of the lifespan and through critical gateway contexts, including homes, schools, and workplaces. We first document how each of these contexts socializes social class cultural differences. Then, we demonstrate how these gateway institutions, which could provide access to upward social mobility, are structured according to middle-class ways of being a self and thus can fuel and perpetuate inequality. We conclude with a discussion of intervention opportunities that can reduce inequality by taking into account the contextual responsiveness of the self.
334 citations
TL;DR: The authors make a case for an anthropological conceptualization of culture as "semiotic practices" and demonstrate how it adds value to political analyses, and show how culture as semiotic practices can be applied as a causal variable.
Abstract: This essay makes a case for an anthropological conceptualization of culture as “semiotic practices” and demonstrates how it adds value to political analyses. “Semiotic practices” refers to the processes of meaning-making in which agents' practices (e.g., their work habits, self-policing strategies, and leisure patterns) interact with their language and other symbolic systems. This version of culture can be employed on two levels. First, it refers to what symbols do—how symbols are inscribed in practices that operate to produce observable political effects. Second, “culture” is an abstract theoretical category, a lens that focuses on meaning, rather than on, say, prices or votes. By thinking of meaning construction in terms that emphasize intelligibility, as opposed to deep-seated psychological orientations, a practice-oriented approach avoids unacknowledged ambiguities that have bedeviled scholarly thinking and generated incommensurable understandings of what culture is. Through a brief exploration of two concerns central to political science—compliance and ethnic identity-formation—this paper ends by showing how culture as semiotic practices can be applied as a causal variable.
334 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the potential of theories of practice to inform the socio-technical transition required to adequately decarbonise the UK transport system and propose a system of practice approach to illuminate systemic change in transport.
333 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a framework that can be used for a comprehensive empirical analysis of livelihood resilience, including buffer capacity, self-organisation, and capacity for learning.
Abstract: Livelihood resilience draws attention to the factors and processes that keep livelihoods functioning despite change and thus enriches the livelihood approach which puts people, their differential capabilities to cope with shocks and how to reduce poverty and improve adaptive capacity at the centre of analysis. However, the few studies addressing resilience from a livelihood perspective take different approaches and focus only on some dimensions of livelihoods. This paper presents a framework that can be used for a comprehensive empirical analysis of livelihood resilience. We use a concept of resilience that considers agency as well as structure. A review of both theoretical and empirical literature related to livelihoods and resilience served as the basis to integrate the perspectives. The paper identifies the attributes and indicators of the three dimensions of resilience, namely, buffer capacity, self-organisation and capacity for learning. The framework has not yet been systematically tested; however, potentials and limitations of the components of the framework are explored and discussed by drawing on empirical examples from literature on farming systems. Besides providing a basis for applying the resilience concept in livelihood-oriented research, the framework offers a way to communicate with practitioners on identifying and improving the factors that build resilience. It can thus serve as a tool for monitoring the effectiveness of policies and practices aimed at building livelihood resilience.
330 citations
TL;DR: The emerging transition from unipolarity to a more multipolar distribution of global power presents a unique and unappreciated problem that largely explains why, contrary to the expectations of balance of power theory, a counterbalancing reaction to U.S. primacy has not yet taken place as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The emerging transition from unipolarity to a more multipolar distribution of global power presents a unique and unappreciated problem that largely explains why, contrary to the expectations of balance of power theory, a counterbalancing reaction to U.S. primacy has not yet taken place. The problem is that, under unipolarity and only unipolarity, balancing is a revisionist, not a status quo, behavior: its purpose is to replace the existing unbalanced unipolar structure with a balance of power system. Thus, any state that seeks to restore a global balance of power will be labeled a revisionist aggressor. To overcome this ideational hurdle to balancing behavior, a rising power must delegitimize the unipole's global authority and order through discursive and cost-imposing practices of resistance that pave the way for the next phase of full-fledged balancing and global contestation. The type of international order that emerges on the other side of the transition out of unipolarity depends on whether the emerg...
330 citations