200
3 eThekwini’s Green and Ecological Infrastructure Policy Landscape
3.5.1 Conceptualising Practice
Reckwitz (2002: 250, cited in Bueger and Gadinger 2015) provided an elaborate
definition of a practice, which highlights how process- and context-specific information relates to practices and practice theory. He notes that ‘a practice is a routinized
type of behaviour that consists of several elements, interconnected to one another:
forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, “things” and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and
motivational knowledge’. When we perform a practice, all these elements are at play,
which means that a practice is not like any of these elements (Reckwitz 2002; Bueger
and Gadinger 2015), and it is because of this that practices produce the structural
profiles of social life (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). Pouliot and Thérien (2018:
164) spoke of practices less comprehensively as ‘socially-meaningful and organized
patterns of activities’, while Jackson and Nexon (2019) asserted that ‘[p]ractices are
obviously processes; they are the doings of agents’, and they fill the voids between
legal rules and procedures (Pouliot and Thérien 2018). In this way, Giddens (1984, in
Feldman and Orlikowski 2011) defined practices as social actions that continuously
produce and reproduce structures that enable actions, as well as constrain them. In
a similar vein, Schatzki (2001, cited in Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1241) noted
that ‘the bundles of human activity that constitute practices enact social orders’.
Practice theory, therefore, captures the consequentiality of practices (Feldman and
Orlikowski 2011) and activities that beget other practices, which, in turn, bring about
enabling and constraining societal structures.
3.5.2 The Practice Perspective
The purpose of this discussion is to deepen our understanding of eThekwini’s green
and ecological infrastructure policy landscape and the role of the individual therein.
With this in mind, practice theory is not a single theoretical approach, like liberal institutionalism, but it consists of a broad range of approaches (Nicolini 2012; McCourt
2016), a ‘broad intellectual landscape’ (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1241) or,
in the words of Pouliot and Thérien (2018: 2), ‘…a large and diverse movement
in social theory’. The extensive description of practice theory allows researchers to
apply the theory in diverse settings; from individuals and organisations, to expansive
geographical locations, and from municipalities and provinces, to the continental
and global.
Practice theorists see social life as a consolidation of embodied and materially
interwoven practices that are prearranged around a set of collective practical understandings of reality (Schatzki et al. 2001, cited in McCourt 2016). For Nicolini (2012),
practice approaches contribute to awareness, since they uncover the actions, efforts
and work of people that lie behind society’s sturdy features, including institutions
and their structures of rule. By focusing research on practices, it moves the attention
3 eThekwini’s Green and Ecological Infrastructure Policy Landscape
3.5.1 Conceptualising Practice
Reckwitz (2002: 250, cited in Bueger and Gadinger 2015) provided an elaborate
definition of a practice, which highlights how process- and context-specific information relates to practices and practice theory. He notes that ‘a practice is a routinized
type of behaviour that consists of several elements, interconnected to one another:
forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, “things” and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and
motivational knowledge’. When we perform a practice, all these elements are at play,
which means that a practice is not like any of these elements (Reckwitz 2002; Bueger
and Gadinger 2015), and it is because of this that practices produce the structural
profiles of social life (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). Pouliot and Thérien (2018:
164) spoke of practices less comprehensively as ‘socially-meaningful and organized
patterns of activities’, while Jackson and Nexon (2019) asserted that ‘[p]ractices are
obviously processes; they are the doings of agents’, and they fill the voids between
legal rules and procedures (Pouliot and Thérien 2018). In this way, Giddens (1984, in
Feldman and Orlikowski 2011) defined practices as social actions that continuously
produce and reproduce structures that enable actions, as well as constrain them. In
a similar vein, Schatzki (2001, cited in Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1241) noted
that ‘the bundles of human activity that constitute practices enact social orders’.
Practice theory, therefore, captures the consequentiality of practices (Feldman and
Orlikowski 2011) and activities that beget other practices, which, in turn, bring about
enabling and constraining societal structures.
3.5.2 The Practice Perspective
The purpose of this discussion is to deepen our understanding of eThekwini’s green
and ecological infrastructure policy landscape and the role of the individual therein.
With this in mind, practice theory is not a single theoretical approach, like liberal institutionalism, but it consists of a broad range of approaches (Nicolini 2012; McCourt
2016), a ‘broad intellectual landscape’ (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1241) or,
in the words of Pouliot and Thérien (2018: 2), ‘…a large and diverse movement
in social theory’. The extensive description of practice theory allows researchers to
apply the theory in diverse settings; from individuals and organisations, to expansive
geographical locations, and from municipalities and provinces, to the continental
and global.
Practice theorists see social life as a consolidation of embodied and materially
interwoven practices that are prearranged around a set of collective practical understandings of reality (Schatzki et al. 2001, cited in McCourt 2016). For Nicolini (2012),
practice approaches contribute to awareness, since they uncover the actions, efforts
and work of people that lie behind society’s sturdy features, including institutions
and their structures of rule. By focusing research on practices, it moves the attention