Conducting Ethnography with a Sensibility for Practice

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of adhering to ontology consistent with theories of social practice while conducting ethnographic research with focus on immersion and openness. As a partial solution to this contradiction, I formulate an outline of a ‘sensibility for practice’, a filtering and sense-making device to be used as a fieldwork tool. I believe this goes a long way towards producing a processual and experience-near account of sociopolitical life while remaining true to the theoretical commitments of practice theories. The sensibility for practice consists of four main principles derived from the theories of social practice and that enable us to hold those theories lightly: focus on what people actually do (and the materials they ‘converse’ with); focus on everydayness; focus on the work of assembling, structuring and ordering; and focus on reflexivity. For each of the principles, I identify three specific ‘loci of attention’ that can serve as sensitising concepts during fieldwork. Sensibility for practice represents a narrowed-down approach to ethnographic research that is able to accommodate various strands of practice studies, including the interpretivist, ‘wholist’ as well as associationist stream.