Everyday Life and How It Changes

This lecture and related workshop focus on social theories of practice and their relevance for understanding everyday life and how it changes. Discussions of everyday practice often focus on the routine and the habitual. By contrast, I am interested in figuring out how ordinary practices, like those of taking a daily shower, emerge, persist and disappear. In addressing this topic I draw upon ideas developed in The Dynamics of Social Practice, (Shove, Pantzar and Watson, Sage 2012). These include the suggestion that everyday practices involve the active integration of ‘elements’ – including materials, competences and meanings; that people become the ‘carriers’ of practice; and that practices interact and in a sense compete with each other. In combination, these ideas challenge dominant paradigms in public policy and reframe problems of ‘behaviour change’ in fields like those of public health and climate change policy.

The lecture will be followed by a postgraduate workshop on Wednesday 22 May at 13:00 in Seminar Room D/L/116