Institutional rhythms : Combining practice theory and rhythmanalysis to conceptualise processes of institutionalisation

Stanley Blue — 2024-02-28T06:00:00Z

This article has already been published in, and is available in open access from Time and Society, 0 (0), 2017, pp. 1-29. We thank Stanley Blue for his permission to republish it here.

Abstract : The practice turn in social theory has renewed interest in conceptualising the temporal organisation of social life as a way of explaining contemporary patterns of living and consuming. As a result, the interest to develop analyses of time in both practice theories and practice theory-based empirical research is increasing. Practice theorists draw on theories of time and ideas about temporal rhythms to explain how practices are organised in everyday life. To date, they have studied how temporal experiences matter for the coordination of daily life, how temporal landscapes matter for issues of societal synchronisation, and how timespace/s matter for the organisation of human activity. While several studies refer to, draw on, and position themselves in relation to ideas about temporal rhythms, those working with theories of practice have yet to fully utilise the potential of Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis for explaining the constitution of, and more specifically, changes within, social life. I argue that rhythmanalysis can be effectively combined with practice theory to better articulate the ways in which practices become connected through what I describe as processes of institutionalisation. I argue that this combination requires repositioning the role of time in theories of practice as neither experience, nor as landscape, but, building on Schatzki's work on The Timespace of Human Activity, as practice itself. Drawing on Lefebvre's concepts of arrhythmia and eurhythmia, and developing Parkes and Thrift's notion of entrainment, I illustrate how institutional rhythms, as self-organising, open, spatiotemporal practices emerge, endure, and evolve in ways that matter for both socio-temporal landscapes and temporal experiences.

Keywords : Practices, repetition, institutions, time, rhythms

Scheduling Routine : An Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Rhythms of Practice in Everyday Life

Stanley Blue — 2018-10-15T12:37:00Z

This text had been submitted for the Degree of Ph.D, at the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, in July 2013.

Abstract : This thesis is concerned with the relationship between social action and social change in ‘everyday' life. I position my argument in contrast to lay and academic re-presentations of action that maintain a distinction between subject and object, between action and change and between being and becoming. I argue for a ‘practice-approach' that considers action, or practice, not as performance or entity ; but instead attempts to capture the presencing of social action by concentrating on ‘practice as event' and ‘practice in the moment of doing'. This serves to locate ‘knowledges' and ‘subjectivities' firmly within the realm of the material and bodily actions of doing, and thus in the continually changing ‘world' of practice. I therefore develop an understanding of change as a fundamental and ongoing property of temporally and spatially situated practice. To support these theoretical claims I employ a rhythmanalytical methodological approach, studying my own experiences of rhythms of practice at five empirical sites, including resistance training, ashtanga yoga, stock car racing, computer gaming and mixed martial arts. Analysis of my own engagement in these rhythms (including immersive participant observations and in depth interviews with fellow participants), from a theoretical-methodological position that recognises practice as change, leads me to argue that the re-production of ‘moments' of practice, depends on the scheduling of practice as routine or nonroutine. So understood, I argue that the scheduling of ‘moments' of practice as routine requires ‘training' to develop sufficient ‘embodied-knowledge-in-practice', ‘syncopation' within the polyrhythmia of ‘everyday' life and the absence of ‘arrhythmia' or nonroutine ‘moments' of practice, in shaping the rhythms of practice in ‘everyday' life. My research contributes to a distinct ontology of practice that re-evaluates the notion of ‘change' in a manner that is relevant not only in ‘theories of practice' ; but also for wider studies of social action.

Rhuthmos

Institutional rhythms : Combining practice theory and rhythmanalysis to conceptualise processes of institutionalisation

Scheduling Routine : An Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Rhythms of Practice in Everyday Life