Bente Halkier

Applying practice theory to the study of consumption: Theoretical and methodological considerations:

In the context of continuing debate in social theory and philosophy about the structure-agency problematic, recent years have seen scholars (re)turn to this theoretical complexity through so-called theories of social practices. Practice theories are a set of cultural and philosophical accounts that focus on the conditions surrounding the practical carrying out of social life. It has roots in the philosophy of Heidegger and Wittgenstein and social scientific roots in the work of early Bourdieu, early Giddens, late Foucault and Butler. Their insights have recently become fused in a composite philosophical ontology of practices developed by Theodore Schatzki (1996, 2002) and colleagues (Schatzki et al., 2001). Together with the useful theoretical mapping provided by Reckwitz (2002) – who sketches practice theory as an ideal type, drawing out its peculiarities through a contrast with theoretical narratives in the broader domain of ‘cultural theories’ – it could be argued that practice theories have come to occupy salient theoretical space across the social sciences and humanities. When Reckwitz (2002) drafted his overview, the principles of these perspectives had already made inroads in ‘science studies, gender studies and organizational studies’ (p. 257). In recent years, this has spread to include anthropology, cultural studies, design studies, environment and

Methodological challenges in using practice theory in consumption research. Examples from a study on handling nutritional contestations of food consumption

In this article, we discuss the challenges of analytical translations between practice theory and empirical research methods in consumption research. We argue that a social constructivist interpretation of practice theory can be particularly useful in enabling consumption researchers to carry out empirical studies that are different from mainstream approaches to consumer culture. Such mainstream approaches typically privilege either individual consumer choices or cultural structures outside of the reach of consumers. We highlight two analytical affordances from social constructivist practice theory. The first is to enable consumption researchers to analyse ways of consuming and how these are entangled in webs of social reproductions and changes. The second is to allow consumption researchers to understand ways of consuming as continuous relational accomplishments in intersectings of multiple practices in everyday life. We discuss the methodological implications for data-production and data-analysis from these two analytical affordances on the basis of our empirical qualitative study of the handling of nutritionalized contestation of food consumption among Pakistani Danes.

Focus groups as social enactments: integrating interaction and content in the analysis of focus group data:

This article argues that there is a need for more methodological discussions and examples upon how to include the social interaction element in analysing focus group data. It is suggested that from a practice theoretical perspective, focus group data (like other types of qualitative data) are understood as social enactments. The article gives examples of four different but related methodological tools of analysis that can help integrating interaction and content in analysing focus group enactments, namely tools from Goffman-inspired interaction analysis, conversation analysis, discourse psychology and positioning theory. The examples are unfolded on focus group data-material from a qualitative empirical research project on how Danish women cook and relate to normative issues in cooking, and the choice of specific examples of tools of analysis are linked to the specific knowledge interests of this research project.

Trust in food safety in Russia, Denmark and Norway

In this paper we argue that institutional conditions should be taken into consideration when consumers trust in food safety is analysed. Our survey results demonstrate that levels of trust in food safety varies considerably across our three selected countries: Russian consumers expressing the lowest level of trust, Norwegian consumers the highest and Danish consumers expressing levels of trust in food safety which were in between. We find empirical evidence in all countries that consumers trust in food safety is related to their evaluation of how their national food control authorities perform, as well as to what extend they trust market mechanisms to secure food quality. However, while trust in food safety in the Scandinavian countries is more likely to rest on trust in public food control, trust in food safety more often depend on trust in market mechanisms in the St. Petersburg region.

Methodological Practicalities in Analytical Generalization

In this article, I argue that the existing literature on qualitative methodologies tend to discuss analytical generalization at a relatively abstract and general theoretical level. It is, however, not particularly straightforward to “translate” such abstract epistemological principles into more operative methodological strategies for producing analytical generalizations in research practices. Thus, the aim of the article is to contribute to the discussions among qualitatively working researchers about generalizing by way of exemplifying some of the methodological practicalities in analytical generalization. Theoretically, the argumentation in the article is based on practice theory. The main part of the article describes three different examples of ways of generalizing on the basis of the same qualitative data material. There is a particular focus on describing the methodological strategies and processes in producing the three different ways of generalizing: ideal typologizing, category zooming, and positioning.

Shifting responsibilities for food safety in Europe: An introduction

Following the BSE crisis in 1996, the European food sector underwent profound regulatory and institutional change. The present introductory article introduces, and sketches the background to, seven studies of the institutional reactions and initiatives that were part of, or prompted by, this reorganisation. The studies analyse the way in which the division of responsibilities for food safety has changed both across the EU as a whole and, more specifically, in six European countries. Prepared as part of the comparative research project, Trust in Food, the studies attempt to go beyond traditional policy network analysis and work on regulation. They ask which constellations of societal actors and logics are important in the shifting responsibilities of public and private actors; and they treat this as an empirical question. It emerges that, at EU level, the main strategy for restoring consumer confidence in food was to enhance the institutional independence, transparency and consumer agency. In the countries covered by the remaining six studies, by contrast, institutional reactions in the food sector varied depending on the particular configurations of state, market and civil society.

Doing ‘healthier’ food in everyday life? A qualitative study of how Pakistani Danes handle nutritional communication

Denmark has a strong tradition of public health communication, but the majority of these initiatives draw upon the deficit model where the so called target groups are seen as passive recipients that lack resources to change their lifestyle. The article contributes to the critique of the deficit model in public health communication by the way of two steps. First, by arguing in favour of using a contextual theoretical perspective, that includes multiple social conditions and dynamics, a combination of practice theory and intersectionality. Second, by presenting an ideal-typology of ways of doing ‘healthier’ food among Pakistani Danes, based on a qualitative empirical study of food habits, everyday life and dealings with nutritional communication.

Positioning consumption: A practice theoretical approach to contested consumption and media discourse

This article analyses the ways in which media discourses become a part of contested consumption activities. We apply a positioning perspective with practice theory to focus on how practitioners relate to media discourse as a symbolic resource in their everyday practices. A typology of performance positionings emerges based on empirical examples of research in parent–children consumption. Positionings are flexible discursive fixations of the relationship between the performances of the practitioner, other practitioners, media discourse and consumption activities. The basic positioning types are the practice maintenance and the practice change position, with different sorts of adapting in between. Media discourse can become a resource for a resistant position against social control or for an appropriating position in favour of space for action. Regardless of the current relation to a particular media discourse, practitioners attempt to maintain their self-positioning of competence when performing. This leads us, as researchers, to caution against any a priori anticipation of the anchoring power of media discourses within everyday activities.

Researching habits: advances in linguistic and embodied research practice

The articles in this special issue have one thing in common: all engage with the epistemological and methodological concerns of researching habits, routines and practices. However, in developing their papers, the authors bring to the fore a diverse range of theoretical perspectives and research questions, located in different disciplinary concerns and interests, though all engaging theories of practice, which vary in their focus and emphasis (Reckwitz, 2002; Warde, 2005; Whatmore, 2002). The pluralities in theoretical perspective on which scholars draw inform different ways of thinking. These connect with epistemological questions on the relationship between language, text, words and discourse on the one hand, and an embodied being in the world on the other hand. They provide interesting but also profound challenges for our practices of knowing. The aim of this special issue is to highlight advances in linguistic and embodied research practice because, as we see it, this stresses a number of salient co-manifestations within and across social science disciplines. These points to debate about the ontology of habits, routines and practices at the level of theory and philosophy, to methodological debate and reflection in social science research and to curiosity in a changing set of research questions that follows on from this. We have actively stimulated what may seem a substantial diversity between the papers in this special issue because this offers different inroads into (a) acknowledging the current centrality of scholarly questioning in social science in which the focus is on habits, routines and practices, and (b) understanding the differences and commonalities across discipline-specific trajectories and rationales for moving in this direction and (c) thinking about the epistemological and methodological consequences of such shifts. There can be little doubt that one reason why recent years have seen a growing international and cross-disciplinary interest in ‘practices’ and the formation and salience of routines and habits is the connection with applied research contexts. This has been engaged to examine fundamental socio-cultural questions relating for instance to sustainability agendas, workplace health and safety and more generally, into policy-related questions with an emphasis on ‘behaviour’ and ‘behavioural change’. These initiatives find resonance in research interest and practice in resource intensive and neo liberal economies in the world. Conceived of in this way

Normalising Convenience Food?: The Expectable and Acceptable Places of Convenient Food in Everyday Life among Young Danes

Abstract The construction of convenience food as a social and cultural category for food provisioning, cooking and eating seems to slide between or across understandings of what is considered “proper food” in the existing discourses in everyday life and media. This article sheds light upon some of the social and cultural normativities around convenience food by describing the ways in which convenience food forms part of the daily life of young Danes. Theoretically, the article is based on a practice theoretical perspective. Empirically, the article builds upon a qualitative research project on food habits among Danes aged 20–25. The article presents two types of empirical patterns. The first types of patterns are the degree to which and the different ways in which convenience food is normalised to use among the young Danes. The second types of patterns are the normative places of convenient food in the everyday lives of young Danes.