Social practice research in practice. Some methodological challenges in applying practice-based approach to the urban research

ABSTRACT

Praxeological turn in social research resulted in many examples of empirical studies using the concept of social practice. They are mostly case studies of a single or clearly defined practices, such as cooking, dancing or energy consumption. There is a lack of studies employing this concept as a framework for research on complex, dynamic and empirically hard to reach socio-spatial phenomena, such as urban housing estates. Drawing from the experience of a 4-year research project in six housing estates in three Polish cities we present and debate methodological challenges in applying theories of practice to urban research. We discuss methodological implications of representational and heuristic models of explanation – which are being applied in practice-based research. We highlight the ambiguity of the notion of social practice in the existing literature and its troublesome ‘double nature’ – implying that social practices are both implicit and observable phenomena –which, although alluring in the stage of conceptualisation, poses challenges in the stage of data collection, analysis and interpretation.

KEYWORDS:

• Neighbourhood practices
• housing estate
• theories of practice
• practice theory methodologies
• representational and heuristic models of explanation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Marta Klekotko, Ewa Kopczyńska and Seweryn Rudnicki for their comments on the draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See the Acknowledgments.

Additional information

Funding

The article is an output of the research project ’Differences and Boundaries in the Process of Creating Neighbourhood Communities in Large Cities. A Socio-spatial Study’, funded by the Polish National Science Centre, under grant no. UMO-2014/15/B/HS6/01949. Research team: Marta Smagacz-Poziemska (PI), Andrzej Bukowski, Marcjanna Nóżka, Karol Kurnicki, Natalia Martini and Krzysztof Bierwiaczonek.

Notes on contributors

Marta Smagacz-Poziemska

Marta Smagacz-Poziemska - a professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University. Her main research interests involve urban neighbourhoods and local communities, public space, urban sustainability. Author and co-editor of publications on social exclusion, urban revitalisation and urban everyday life. Member and principal investigator of several national and international research projects; coordinator of the 37. Research Network (Urban Sociology) of the European Sociological Association, member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the JPI Urban Europe.

Andrzej Bukowski

Andrzej Bukowski – a professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University. His main research interests include regionalism, local and regional development, democracy and civil society as well as social theory. A participant and co-ordinator of over a dozen scientific research projects funded by Polish and international like: State Committee for Scientific Research, National Science Centre, European Union and World Bank among others. Currently researching the institutional factors of innovation and innovativeness as well as the collaboration of the social sciences and the economy in broad terms.

Natalia Martini

Natalia Martini - Doctoral Student at the Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. Principal Investigator of the project ‘City experienced in the homeless situation. A socio-spatial study’ funded by the Polish National Science Centre under grant no. 2016/23/N/HS6/00810. Sociologist with a background in cultural studies, who has a strong interest in urban everyday life, as well as creative, transdisciplinary methodological approaches to urban phenomena. Her work cuts across sociology and human geography and favors critical and activist approaches to scholarship.