Towards a new linguistic and social paradigm: from individual creativity to community of practice

Abstract

The sociology of practice contains the conceptual resources necessary to address what had been an important issue for the philosophy of praxis, namely, the relationship between large-scale historical processes and subjective experience. Practice entered the vocabulary of social scientific research and featured in several strands of the social sciences themselves in the 1990s. Schatzki (2001) conceptualises social changes as configurations of significant differences in sets of material arrangements and practices. The author argues that chains of action combine with material processes and events to cause social change. Practices are approaches that highlight what is situated, observable and meaningful, i.e. social events performed linguistically or through body movement and/or with the contribution of material artefacts. This scholar argues that practice theories present pluralistic and flexible images rooted in both social life and local contexts that successfully accommodate complexities, differences and particularities, so much so that both social order and individuality result from practices.