When do practices change? A critical analysis of the concepts and mechanisms of social change and dynamics in the social practice theory of Shove, Pantzar and Watson, and Schatzki
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26485/PS/2025/74.4/5Keywords:
social practices, social practice theory, social change, dynamics, materialityAbstract
The so-called “second wave” theory of social practice is a theory whose central theme is the dynamics of the social world. Although it is sceptical of any theory that distinguishes separate levels in the social world, it captures the social world and its dynamics as a process that unfolds through several different pathways. These include dynamics in terms of elements of practice, practices and relationships between practices, trajectories of actors’ practices and their careers as practitioners, and other kinds of circuits or phenomena. Works referring to the theory of practice usually use a simplified or abbreviated list of the above pathways, while a more thorough reading of the work of the theory’s creators makes it possible to distinguish, for each pathway, a number of mechanisms by which practices change and the conditions under which they occur. In this article I reconstruct the mechanisms of social change present in the work of Schatzki and Shove, Pantzar and Watson. I then derive hypotheses about what features of these relationships are conducive to the persistence or gradual development of a practice, or to its disappearance or radical transformation. I also point out the limitations and weaknesses of conceptualising social change in theories of social practice.
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