What is in an Account of Practices?

This chapter engages Stephen Turner's comments on practices by asking what accounts of practices are up to and encompass. It begins by considering two conceptions of practices: practices as organized actions (theories of practices) and practices as patterns of activity (Turner). These conceptions connect to two notions of what an account of practices is up to: whereas Turner's account starts from patterns and seeks to explain them, theories of practice begin from the question, How best conceptualize social phenomena?, and propose that researchers analyze such phenomena as practices. The chapter then spells out Turner's well- known criticisms of "classical"collective accounts of practices. These criticisms, it claims, vex Giddens's account but pass by Bourdieu's. Bourdieu's account in fact converges with Turner's. The chapter next outlines Turner's account of practices, according to which patterns of activity are explained by complexes of habits. These complexes are unique due to people's individualized paths of learning but sufficiently aligned to generate patterns in action. The final section presents my own "postclassical"collective account of practices. This account skirts Turner's criticisms and both affirms the individualized nature of learning and is compatible with each person having unique cognitive machinery. It might, I suggest, be combined with Turner's account to yield a more robust theory of practices. Still, it remains unclear whether the kind of explanation of action Turner advocates jibes with those implied by postclassical accounts.