Structural architecture of everyday practices in the context of a critical rethinking of poststructuralist synthesis

Abstract

The article is devoted to the topic of the structure of everyday practices. The topic of everyday practices is determined by a number of problematic situations, which form separate topical areas of scientific interest, united by a common perspective. The author notes that in the modern sociological theory of practices, practices are understood as resource-determined routinization of social actions that have certain attributions – characteristics that are associated with the technical implementation of practices as an algorithm of sequential actions. Investigating the structure of practices, the author turns to the works of the classics of post-structuralist approach - P. Bourdieu and E. Giddens, and involves the introduced by them concepts of habitus and reflective monitoring in the analysis. It is substantiated that habitus is the central concept of practices. However, as the author defines, the concept of habitus is too contradictory and broad to apply in understanding the structure of practices. In this context, the author proposes to involve a new concept of the habitual scenario. The habitual scenario seems to be part of the general habitus and is a specific pattern of the bodily-behavioral algorithm of a particular practice. The author also substantiates the expediency of introducing his second concept into the scientific vocabulary - protoforms of practices. The introduction of this concept allows, according to the author, to mark the moment of possible creativity of practices. And this moment is the fact of the actor's understanding of the practice, his awareness of the sequence of his actions for the purpose of their transformation, as perfection. Often, modernization involves the creation of a new habitual scenario that is, the emergence of a new practice. The function of reflexive monitoring in the structure of practices reproduces the function of control over their occurrence according to the algorithm of the habitual scenario. In summary, the author describes the general structure of everyday practices, defines the role and function of each of the components of structural architectonics.