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Practice Theory

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Saved by Veronica Vang
on November 30, 2010 at 1:07:51 am
 

 

Table of Contents 

 



 

Main Points

 

     The anthropological concept of Practice theory is not necessarily a defined theory, but a perspective used in collaboration with other anthropological theories, such as functionalism or symbolic anthropology.  The main ideas of practice theory are analyzing the relationship between established structures of culture and how the people in reality act within that structure.  In Sherry Ortner's description of Practice Theory she lays out three main aspects of this relationship: the Power Shift, Historic Turn, and the Re-Interpretation of Culture.[1] 

 

 

Power Shift

     The power shift was characterized by a shifting view of power. This shift occurred from dominance of one class over the other to power relationships between every individual.  In this way, power is viewed as a product of human agency, not as an objective force in society.  "Habitus" is a term central to the power shift as well. It refers to how people habituate their power roles, and therefore create the structure that exists.  Other founding practice theorists believe that power relationships have a certain level of consciousness and therefore people actively create resistance to society.

 

 

Historic Turn

     The historic turn focuses on temporality, or history as a key element to cultural structures.  It was used in short-term contexts, such as the time importance in the reciprocation of a gift.  It also served as a way to study culture's history and its effects on the current state.  

 

 

Re-interpretation of Culture

     In previous interpretations of culture, there was a basic concept that people had a grip on culture and acted in response to their culture.  Anthropologists would associate human action and practice in relation to their culture.  However, this frame sometimes led to cultural stereotyping and profiling of people to explain how they acted in relation to their culture. 

 

 

Habitus

     One of the main points illustrated about Practice theory is the concept of habitus. This was brought up by Bordieu in his book, The Logic of Practice, in a section titled "Structures, Habitus, Practices." Habitus is explained  to be, “systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is as a principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them.”[2] In layman's terms, habitus can be defined as being the collective set of practices and habits that an individual or collective group partakes in on a day to day basis. By looking at how habitus materializes, we can see the similarities between individuals and classes who are more likely to undergo the same experiences and understand how these have become homogenized to become an indicator of a culture.

 


 

Key Figures

 

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

 

[3]

 

     Pierre Bourdieu was French social scientist born in 1930 to a family of modest means in a province in southwestern France [4]. He obtained his degree in philosophy from Ecole Normal Superίeure. Shortly after, Bourdieu was sent to Algeria for his military service in 1955 [5]. He also conducted research and taught at the University of Algiers. In addition to his stay there, Bourdieu carried out many extensive fieldwork projects and surveys there [6]. Some of his research consisted among the rural Kabyle and with Berber-speaking migrants to Algiers [7].  Bourdieu was strongly influenced by the relationship between culture and power which led him to be involved in political efforts [8]. Bourdieu's involvement to political efforts led him to start his ethnographic research in the midst of violence when Algeria was fighting for its independence after World War II from the French [9].  His research on Algeria was sought for the purpose to understand the war and by doing so; Bourdieu came to follow a structuralist agenda. However, organizing his data, he concluded two results from his research; that methods and devices used to assist in organizing data were assumed logical models from the anthropologist’s own specific culture indicating a bias and that an outsider perspective observing the Algerian society were not the acts of rules but the products of a more fluid and often contradictory social experience. [10] From his findings, he decided to understand the culture by examining the practices of everyday actions, behaviors etc. from the people.

 

     However, in 1960, Bourdieu moved back to Paris because of the procolonial Algiers forcing him to flee. This was because, classified as a certain type of ‘liberal’, he was under the threat of death [11]. In Paris at the L’Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes, he organized a group of scholars examining European educational systems [12]. Bourdieu at this time also continued to analyze field data collected during sojourns in rural and urban Algeria until 1964.  Around 1970’s Bourdieu had slowly established his position in French academia through streams of publications. Some books that he wrote were Distinction (1979/1984) and The Logic of Practice (1980/1990) that propelled Bourdieu to become the chair of sociology at the College of France in 1981 [13].  Boudieu continued to write books and publish articles from his perspectives of intellectual fields such as art history, educational research, cultural studies and philosophy until he died in 2002 of cancer. By the end of his death, he had written forty five books and 500 articles [14].

 

     Bourdieu’s work contributed and was very influential to anthropology through his development of the theory of practice. He wrote two books, Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977) and The Logic of Practice (1990) that really explains and elaborates what the concept of the theory of practice [15]. Bourdieu explained the theory of practice by arguing that culture is the exclusive product neither of free will not of underlying principles but is actively constructed by social actors from cultural dispositions and structured by previous events [16]. Contributing to the Practice Theory, Bourdieu introduced the terms doxa, habitus and practice to help comprehend the rules that underlie social behavior [17].

 

Sherry Ortner (1941-present)

 

     Sherry Ortner was born on September 19, 1941 in Newark, New Jersey.  Ortner received her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College in 1962.  She went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago while studying with another prominent anthropologist, Clifford Geertz. From 1977 to 1994, Ortner taught in the Women’s Studies and Anthropology programs at the University of Michigan.  Following the University of Michigan, Ortner taught briefly at the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University. (http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/ortner_sherry.html)  Since 2004, she has taught at University of California at Los Angeles.  She is also a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” grant in 1990.  

    

      Her most famous published work is titled, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” in 1974.  In 2004, Ortner was given the J.I. Staley prize for writing the best anthropology book of the year.( http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/ortner/) Ortner has acquired many honors in her career from “the National Science Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Retzius Medal of the Society of Anthropology and Geography of Sweden.” (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/ortner/)


     Practice Theory as explained by 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."  She goes on to state, “every usage of the term 'practice' presupposes a question of the relationship between practice and structure." (http://www.elizd.com/website-LeftBrain/essays/practice.html)

 


 

Key Texts

 

 

Outline of a Theory of Practice by Pierre Bordieu

Practice theory seeks to find the context of events that a structuralist theory is unable to address and/or explain. Pierre Bordieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice is centralized on habitus, unconscious behavior that is constructed and limited by an individual's previous experiences, or as Bordieu defines it "spontaneity without consciousness or will" (56).  In direct contrast to structuralism, practice theory believes social structures to be set forth and defined by the action's of the people, in particular habitus. He theorizes that, to an extent, structures also influence one's habitus, but only in regards to social "norms" that have already been set fourth by society. In this respect, habitus and institutionalization coexist in self-perpetuating cycles.

 

Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power and the Acting Subject by Sherry Ortner 

Sherry Ortner’s Anthropology and Social Theory draws on Practice Theory to offer solutions to modern problems. On page 3 of the book she writes that Practice Theory suggests restoring "the actor to the social process without losing sight of the larger structures that constrain (but also enable) social action". In this book Ortner rethinks key concepts of culture, agency and subjectivity in order to apply them to anthropology in the twenty-first century. The book is comprised of seven essays, both of interpretive and theoretical nature. She argues that the concept of culture needs to be reconfigured and suggests applying elements of Practice Theory in order to do this. She stresses the notion of human agency and demonstrates how social theories must build upon one another in order to be relevant in modern contexts. 

 

 

 

 

Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis by Anthony Gidden 

 

 


 

Critiques

     Though the Practice Theory of Anthropology is one that encompasses a more holistic approach by validating an individual’s agency within the context of their society, it still has its downfalls and critiques. However, given that it is one of the newest anthropological frames of thought, this theory has limited critique.

 

Stephen Turner

     One of the key and only authors critiquing practice theory is Stephen Turner in his book Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge, and Presupposition[18]. In his book, Turner argues that practice theory’s focus on agency and social constructs is too limiting in the analysis of other cultures and societies. He states that although Practice Theorists may be trying to find an overarching idea that defines all cultures, this generality is a product of the assumption that knowledge is tacit, or that knowledge is understood or implied without being specifically stated. According to Turner, however, cultures do not have an identifiable means by which a "practice" can be transmitted or recreated. Essentially, Practice Theorists' dependency upon the idea of tacit knowledge limits their description and understanding of how "practice" is shared and handed down. Thus, without this basis of tacit knowledge there can be no such theory of practice.

 

     Additionally, Turner states that Practice Theory is too general in stating that all individuals of a society live under universal or shared social constructs. Since the individual is directly effecting what the social constructs are in their community, the social constructs will never be the same for every individual. This negates the fact that the construct is in fact a universal social construct at all. This argument then goes further by stating that because of this lack of a shared or universal construct within a society, there can be no way for these "universal practices" to be transmitted to the next generation. [19]

 

 

 

 

Footnotes

  1. Ortner, Sherry B. Anthropology and Social Theory: Culture, Power, and the Acting Subject. Duke University Press, 2006.
  2. Bordieu, Pierre. The Logic of Practice. 1 ed. Stanford University Press, 1992.
  3. "Pierre Bourdieu." Gluon Symmetry. Web. 18 Nov 2010. .
  4. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 322. Print.
  5. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 322. Print.
  6. Wacquant, Loic. "The Sociological Life of Pierre Bourdieu." International Sociology 17.4 (2002): 552. Web. 18 Nov 2010. .
  7. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 322. Print.
  8. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 323. Print.
  9. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 326. Print.
  10. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 324. Print.
  11. Wacquant, Loic. "The Sociological Life of Pierre Bourdieu." International Sociology 17.4 (2002): 552. Web. 18 Nov 2010. .
  12. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 322. Print.
  13. Wacquant, Loic. "The Sociological Life of Pierre Bourdieu." International Sociology 17.4 (2002): 553. Web. 18 Nov 2010. .
  14. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 334. Print.
  15. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 325. Print.
  16. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 321. Print.
  17. Moore, Jerry. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC., 329. Print.
  18. Turner, S. P. (1994). The social theory of practices: tradition, tacit knowledge, and presuppositions. University of Chicago Press.
  19. Turner, S. P. (1994). The social theory of practices: tradition, tacit knowledge, and presuppositions. University of Chicago Press.

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