Stanley Blue

Practice Theory and the Biosocial - Microbes, Matter and Milieu shows what recent developments in social theory bring to questions about how bacteria, viruses, microscopic materials and societies develop in tandem. The examples discussed – from urban infrastructures to the medieval plague and from antibiotic resistance to epigenetics –develop an account of how previous and present arrangements make some futures more likely than others and how unequal patterns of exposure and entanglement arise. This book aims to demonstrate the relevance of social and practice theories by overcoming classic distinctions between the very small and the very large, between agency and structure, and between nature and culture.

This book breaks new ground in sociological theory, presenting a process-oriented practice theory for conceptualising and studying the dynamism, interconnectedness and ongoing transformation of everyday social life. Drawing on process-inspired approaches from disciplines such as anthropology, geography and science and technology studies, it develops a framework for understanding practices not as things that change, but as ongoing processes that organise everyday life. Each chapter engages with a specific debate in practice theory, including how to conceptualise the site of the social, the status of the practitioner, how practices connect and extend across space and time, the role of memory in practice, the place of power, and appropriate methods for capturing the dynamics of social practice. In doing so, the book introduces a conceptual vocabulary for describing connection, extension, and emergence in a way that attends to the affective space of the social. Practice Theory and Process Philosophy is essential reading for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities who are interested in practice theory, process philosophy and social theory.