Praxeology (social theory)

The praxeology (also praxistheorie , sometimes a practice or practical turn is also mentioned ) is a sociological and philosophical social and cultural theory (or a group of social theoretical considerations), which understands the social as consisting of practices carried out by the body.

On the one hand, praxeology is a microsociology in the sense that it does not think of the social (“ society ” and culture ) in terms of “disembodied” structures (classical structuralism ), but emphasizes its madeness in everyday actions, as something that “does "Must become (" doing culture ", see also action theory ). It belongs to the constructivist cultural theories, but also turns against ideas that are otherwise often encountered in the cultural and social sciences , which understand the social in terms of - immaterial - ideas, worldviews, systems of norms or linguistic communication, and thus also against the linguistic turn . For praxeology, the physicality of the practices and the materiality of the contexts including their artifacts are decisive - practices are activities of the body in a material environment (cf. also material turn ).

From a practical theoretical perspective, practices do not necessarily have to be intended by the agent , but also extend to everyday behavior that is not or no longer consciously reflected, because it runs more or less automatically, routinely ( i.e. empractically ) with the help of implicit knowledge or body knowledge , such as the finger grips when typing on a computer keyboard . With this, the practice theory turns away from the rationalistic and subjectivistic models often formulated , especially in economics (such as the conception of Ludwig von Mises, which happens to be also called “ praxeology ” and also the model of homo oeconomicus in general), that of rational, conscious and intentional acting actors run out ( rational choice ). Because most of these practices are learned anyway, praxeology is based on the historical and cultural specificity of practices - and thus of the social. Practices are constantly changing , making praxeology interesting for the historical sciences as well. In the more recent ethnology , social and cultural anthropology , arguments and research are often carried out praxeologically.

Origin and development tendencies

The praxeology goes back to various theoretical considerations and empirical observations and cites various theoreticians and currents as their ancestors. Among the most important is the American microsociological tradition in the wake of Alfred Schütz , especially Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Erving Goffman's role theory . Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice is cited just as often , as he outlined it in his 1972 first draft of a theory of practice based on Kabyle society . Other points of reference are Anthony Giddens ' structuring theory, French post-structuralism ( Michel Foucault , but also Gilles Deleuze ), Judith Butler's performance theory of the sexes, Gilbert Ryle's philosophy of practice and the late work of Ludwig Wittgenstein with his reflections on "language games" and on knowledge as skill (especially cited by Theodore Schatzki , who also mentions Martin Heidegger's understanding of existence as “being in the world” as a suggestion).

In addition to these theoretical and philosophical influences, significant suggestions can be traced back to empirical research in the sociology of science , which in the 1970s and 1980s increasingly turned to the laboratory as a field of activity. In order to observe scientists producing knowledge and truth, it turned out to be necessary to take their physical actions as well as their technical instruments seriously. Important researchers here included Karin Knorr-Cetina and Trevor Pinch . From this context, the largely comes from Bruno Latour , Michel Callon and John Law developed actor-network theory , which contains many praxeological considerations.

In addition to Schatzki and Knorr-Cetina, who proclaimed The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory in a volume published in 2001 and thus significantly influenced the debate, Sherry Ortner and Elizabeth Shove should be mentioned as representatives in the English-speaking area . In German-speaking sociology, Andreas Reckwitz in particular contributed to the theoretical positioning of praxeology.

The preferred method of praxeological sociologists and ethnologists is that of ethnography , which closely describes the practices of a particular field through participatory observation and interviews .

In German-speaking history, Thomas Welskopp and Sven Reichardt in particular established praxeology as a research method.

literature

• Andreas Reckwitz : Basic elements of a theory of social practices. A social theoretical perspective . In: Journal for Sociology , vol. 32, issue 4, August 2003, pp. 282–301 ( PDF ).
• Frank Hillebrandt: Sociological practice theories. An introduction . Wiesbaden 2014.
• Hilmar Schäfer : The instability of practice. Reproduction and Transformation of the Social in Practice Theory . Hamlet 2013.
• Hilmar Schäfer (Ed.): Practice theory. A sociological research program . Bielefeld 2016.
• Volker Caysa : Empractical Reason. Peter Lang, Bern 2015, ISBN 978-3-631-66707-1 .

Remarks

1. ↑ See e.g. B. Lucas Haasis, Constantin Rieske: Historical praxeology - dimensions of past action . Paderborn 2015 ( werkstattgeschichte.de [PDF]).
2. ↑ Cf. for example Gerd Spittler : Anthropologie der Arbeit. An ethnographic comparison. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10433-7 .
3. ↑ Pierre Bourdieu: Draft of a theory of practice on the ethnological basis of the Kabyle society , 2nd edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2009 (first French 1972).
4. ^ Theodore Schatzki: Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social . Cambridge 1996; Theodore Schatzki: The Site of the Social. A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change . University Park 2002.
5. ^ Theodore Schatzki, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Eike von Savigny (eds.): The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory . New York / London 2001 ( PDF ).
6. ↑ On this Andreas Reckwitz: Practices and their discourses. On the logic of practice / discourse formations . In: Andreas Reckwitz: Creativity and Social Practice. Studies on social and societal theory , Bielefeld 2016, pp. 49–66, here pp. 56f.
7. ↑ Cf. as a summary of various essays Thomas Welskopp: Company history of practice. Historical perspectives on capitalism, work and class society . Tübingen 2014.
8. ↑ Sven Reichardt: Fascist combat leagues. Violence and community in Italian squadrism and in the German SA . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2002. 2nd revised edition 2009; see. also Sven Reichardt: praxeology and fascism. Violence and community as elements of a praxeological concept of fascism . In: Karl H. Hörning , Julia Reuter (Ed.): Doing Culture. New positions on the relationship between culture and practice . Bielefeld 2004, pp. 129–153.