Social practice theory

Practice theory is a theory of how social beings, with their diverse motives and their diverse intentions, make and transform the world in which they live. It is a dialectic between social structure and human agency working back and forth in a dynamic relationship. Practice theory, as outlined by Sherry Ortner, "seeks to explain the relationship(s) that obtain between human action, on the one hand, and some global entity which we call 'the system' on the other". The approach seeks to resolve the antinomy between traditional structuralist approaches and approaches such as methodological individualism which attempted to explain all social phenomena in terms of individual actions.

Practice theory is strongly associated with the French theorist and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. His concept of habitus represents an important formulation of the principles of practice theory. Bourdieu developed the notion of 'habitus' to capture 'the permanent internalisation of the social order in the human body'. His book, Outline of a Theory of Practice, which is based on his work in Algeria during the Algerian War of Independence is an example of Bourdieu's formulation of practice theory applied to empirical data gathered through ethnography. Several works of his are considered classics, not only in sociology, but also in anthropology, education, international relations and cultural studies. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (La Distinction) was named as one of the 20th century's ten most important works of sociology by the International Sociological Association.

Known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies, Anthony Giddens is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists. His works, Central Problems in Social Theory (1979) and The Constitution of Society (1984), brought him international fame on the sociological arena. Giddens developed the theory of structuration an analysis of agency and structure, in which primacy is granted to neither, to demonstrate 'how principles of order could both produce and be reproduced at the level of practice itself' and not through some 'ordering' society impinging upon individual actors from above.

A closely related notion to Bourdieu's habitus is Michel Foucault's concept of 'discipline'. Like habitus, discipline 'is structure and power that have been impressed on the body forming permanent dispositions'. In contrast to Bourdieu, though, Foucault laid particular emphasis on the violence through which modern regimes (e.g. prisons and asylums) are used as a form of social control.

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