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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02 Aug 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, a rapport etudie l'evolution de la participation des femmes au sein de la vie sociale et politique dans le monde.
Abstract: Ce rapport etudie l'evolution de la participation des femmes au sein de la vie sociale et politique dans le monde. L'A. isole trois indicateurs qui permettent d'analyser ce phenomene : les ressources socio-economiques dont peuvent disposer les femmes, leur autonomie en matiere d'action collective et enfin leurs possibilites en terme de reussite sociale. Il analyse la signification de chacun de ces indicateurs et souligne que ceux-ci peuvent etre envisages simultanement grâce a une methode de «triangulation». La mesure de l'evolution de la condition de la femme et de son niveau de participation politique et sociale mobilise un certain nombre de valeurs. Elle doit tenir compte des specificites du contexte socio-culturel dont elle s'efforce de decrire l'evolution
327 citations
TL;DR: Bourdieu's work has attracted considerable interest and, not withstanding criticism of his style and obscure theoretical formulations, has introduced some powerful concepts into social theory as mentioned in this paper, such as the concept of social mobility.
Abstract: Bourdieu's work has attracted considerable interest and, not withstanding criticism of his style and obscure theoretical formulations, has introduced some powerful concepts into social theory. This...
326 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the energy consumption of households and the question of how daily routines can be changed in a more sustainable direction and introduce practice theory that emphasizes sociotechnical structures as the basis for analyzing stability of consumer practices and opportunities for change.
Abstract: Summary
This article focuses on the energy consumption of households and the question of how daily routines can be changed in a more sustainable direction. It discusses different theoretical approaches with which to understand consumer behavior and introduces practice theory that emphasizes sociotechnical structures as the basis for analyzing stability of consumer practices and opportunities for change. Through analysis of ten in-depth interviews with families participating in a project aimed at reducing standby consumption, it is shown how technological configurations, everyday life routines, knowledge, and motivation constitute the practice and also structure the possibilities for change. The article concludes by contending that a conception of human behavior that is both less rational and less individualistic is needed to understand stability and change of households’ energy consumption behavior.
325 citations
TL;DR: The metaphor of persuading and coercing has been criticised as a misleadingly narrow approach to understanding modern methods of domination as mentioned in this paper, which reveals the metaphor to be their unexamined product.
Abstract: Across the different disciplines of social science, studies of power and resistance continue to be dominated by a single, master metaphor: the distinction between persuading and coercing. The metaphor seems as clear as the difference between mind and body, to which of course it corresponds. Power may operate at the level of ideas, persuading the mind of its legitimacy, or it may work as a material force directly coercing the body. Max Weber founded his sociology of domination on this Cartesian and Kantian distinction, and the distinction colonized other theoretical territory in which it had been originally placed in question, including that of Marx. The metaphor survives today even in the growing number of works that realize its limitations and formally renounce it. 1 This essay offers a critique of the metaphor, as a misleadingly narrow approach to understanding modern methods of domination; at the same time, by offering an alternative understanding of those methods, it reveals the metaphor to be their unexamined product. There are at least two reasons for the metaphor's persistence. One stems from the fact that it is indissociable from our everyday conception of the person. We tend to think of persons as unique self-constituted consciousneses living inside physically manufactured bodies. 2 As something self-formed, this consciousness is the site of an original autonomy. The notion of an internal autonomy of consciousness defines the way we think of coercion. It obliges us to imagine the exercise of power as an external process that can coerce the behavior of the body without necessarily penetrating and controlling the mind. Power must therefore be conceived as something two-fold, with both a physical and a mental mode of operation. This way of thinking of power in relation to the political subject applies not only to individuals but to any political agent, such as a group or class. Much of the recent theoret
325 citations
01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: The biological reductionism by which modern medicine is frequently characterized is more theoretical than actual; in its effects, biomedicine speaks beyond its explicit reductionist reference through implicit ways it teaches us to interpret ourselves, our world, and the rela-tionships between humans, nature, self, and society.
Abstract: While biomedicine has successfully created and hoarded a body of technical knowledge to call its own, its knowledge and practices draw upon a background of tacit understandings that extend far beyond medical boundaries The biological reductionism by which modern medicine is frequently characterized is more theoretical than actual; in its effects, biomedicine speaks beyond its explicit reductionist reference through the implicit ways it teaches us to interpret ourselves, our world, and the rela-tionships between humans, nature, self, and society It draws upon and projects cosmology (ways of ordering the world), ontology (assumptions about reality and being), epistemology (assumptions about knowledge and truth), understandings of personhood, society, morality, and religion (what is sacred and profane) Although biomedicine both constitutes and is constituted by society, this interdependency is nevertheless denied by biomedical theory and ideology which claim neutrality and universality
324 citations