Practice Theory caught my interest because I’m fascinated by the things that influence beliefs and behavior. And how we come to know what we know. I’m really interested in how we accept new information into our worldview. And the cultural systems that support, reject or slow down that flow of knowledge.
Fall Semester, 2021
(7 minute read)
In the 1970s and 1980s a shift in focus toward the mundane actions people take in their everyday life revolutionized the field of Anthropology. And the earlier focus on symbols, rituals, and economical structures brought into question the levels of which accepted “theoretical frameworks” maintained a western culture perspective and encouraged acts of stereotyping (Ortner 1984, 138). Further, an interest in exploring how social systems are created, reproduced, and ultimately experience change (including systems within Anthropology) ushered in a new theory of Practice (Ortner 1984, 138 and 149). This paper explores how Practice Theory created new paths for studying culture (and systems of power) and radically changed (and continues to change) the practices and awareness within the field of Anthropology.
Pierre Bourdieu
French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu introduced Practice Theory in a way that challenged current methods of interpreting culture. And offered the central ideas of field and habitus as the foundation for how everyday actions (practices) reproduced the conditions of the condition which produced them (Bourdieu 1977, 2 and 78). In other words, the habitus is “a system of dispositions adjusted to the game [of the field]” (Bourdieu 1984, in Moi 1991, 1021). Additionally, Bourdieu introduced the idea of doxa as the field of opinion. Those beliefs which seem self-evident or taken for granted as the norm. When the undisputed idea (doxa) is initially questioned; a heterodoxy is formed in the moment of asking ‘why this way?’. And an orthodoxy is created in support of that which was assumed to be the norm, because “it has always been this way”. This awareness forever changes the doxa (Bourdieu 1977, 164-171). These terms, field, habitus and doxa are key to Practice Theory. They highlight a shift in how anthropologists would study and report on power, cultures and social systems. And opened up more opportunities and fields of study as the focus shifted to everyday practices.
The Study of Everyday Practices
A field of study could now be anything. Anthropologists became interested in studying the mundane practices of everyday life from a “particular political angle” and how those practices impact “the system” of culture (Ortner 1984, 148-149). This was a departure from an earlier focus on how people are socialized into their cultures and the observations of, and participation in, rituals and traditions that supported the norms and values within a particular culture (Ortner 1984, 154). The habitus (everyday actions) comes from experience within the field. They are not an explicit set of rules, but a system of practices that is required in order for the field to function (Moi 1991, 1021-1022). Additionally, Anthony Giddens offered an outline for identifying and giving meaning to terms like structure and system. He introduced a similar concept with structuration that gave more attention to the actor’s agency in reproducing systems (Giddens 1979, 66-73).
By theorizing that social systems “exist in time-space”, Giddens distinguishes systems as “reproduced relationships”. Which differs from the “rules and resources” of structure (Giddens 1970, 66). Ortner further expressed structures as being too fixed to support change. And highlighted a new emphasis of systems that “restricts and inhibits” through the study of constraints on both the change and reproduction of culture (Ortner 1984, 152-154). The discourse around these new frameworks offered language to explain how systems of culture are recreated through everyday actions of the actors. But there were also critics of the theory. Additions to the theory were needed to fully explore the dynamics of power and how social change takes place.
Practice Theory Critiques
Stephen Turner’s critique of practice theory rejects shared or reproducing ideas. He called, “non-public collective objects”, meaning the “unspoken” presuppositions and norms verses the “public things like rituals and texts” (Turner 1997, 345). Turner took issue with using practice theory as a way to define cultures with universal themes and a misstep in outlining a “causal process” for practices, specifically between cultures or groups. He also found problems with both the “thing-ness” that was being shared, and the “sameness of the thing” at a group level. Essentially asking what process is required (and missing from the theory) that explains how groups of people experience the same ideas and how they arrive at its practice without awareness of it or without variation (Turner 1997, 346-347).
While Turner advocated for dropping practice theory, others continued to critique the lack of agency. And criticized Bourdieu for aligning practices “to structures in a non-interpretive way” that didn’t offer any new explanations with habitus other than a way to “operationalize” existing social structures (Alexander 1995, in Elder-Vass 2007, 328). The ongoing debate between structure and agency fueled more research and theory development. And it seems clear that Bourdieu and Giddens’ work helped to “raise these issues” for further study (Tan 2011, 48).
Structure and Agency
It is important to note that structure and agency were not seen as independent ideas within these theories. The dialectic relationship between field and habitus Bourdieu theorized and the dualism between structure and agency in Giddens’ theory, highlighted new ideas different than the oppositional theories of the past. And in doing so offered “resolutions to problems that had been plaguing the field” of anthropology and created space to ask questions concerning topics such as power and inequalities (Ortner 2006, 2-3). This was of particular interest to Ortner.
Sherry Ortner
While practice theory outlined levels of agency not seen in earlier theories (and that debate continues) Ortner looked to focus her attention to power and history. She began to explore the practices that resist and challenge culture (Ortner 2006, 3). Specifically, Ortner looked to address three areas:
- power shifts and “critical studies in gender, race, ethnicity, and colonialism”.
- historic turn which returns to Bourdieu’s focus on time and habitus as an “embodied history”. Offering historical context to social sciences.
- cultural studies which endeavors to reexamine theories of culture through the lens of “practice (and power and history)” (Ortner 2006, 3-16; Bourdieu 1990, 54-57).
This further study by Ortner and others highlights the relevance, endurance and revolutionary importance of practice theory. If the world could be made by practice, it can be “unmade and remade”. Further study would dig into the “missing areas” and give attention to theories of culture and the role of power. Offering both a context and history (Ortner 2006, 16-17).
Practice Theory’s Impact
The impact Practice Theory had/has on anthropology speaks to how relationships of agency and power are observed. And how participation within these systems recreate and impact the system itself. Specifically looking at how these systems are designed, and the everyday behavior expected and acted within them, the cycle of behavior that can change a system is a relevant study in a society where people work to dismantle systemic inequalities, and others work to maintain them. The concepts of heterodoxy and orthodoxy play out even as observable changes are taking place within any given field. And the field of anthropology is facing its own cycle of much needed change. Current measures to diversity both the points of view in the pool of knowledge and the actors within the field are at play.
Practice Theory didn’t only revolutionize the way anthropologists work. It came at a time when the field was looking for change (much like it is today). It is a theory that can explore the actions needed to create change to a system in need of change. Practice Theory gives space for relational and complex system change between meaningful ideas within the systems. And that offers hope for a new way of being, both at the individual and community level.
Work Cited
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977 [1972]. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Richard Nice, trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice, Stanford University Press.
Elder-Vass, Dave. 2007. “Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an Emergentist Theory of Action.” Sociological Theory 25 (4): 325-346
Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis. California: University of California Press.
Moi, Toril. 1991. “Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture.” New Literary History 22 (4): 1017-1049
Ortner, Sherry B. 1984. “Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26 (1): 126-166
Ortner, Sherry B. 2006. Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388456-001
Tan, Sherman. 2011. “Understanding the “Structure” and “Agency” Debate in the Social Sciences.” Habitus 1: 36-50
Turner, Stephen P. 1997. “Bad Practices: A Reply.” Human Studies, 20: 345-356