To start practice theorizing anew: The contribution of the concepts of agencementand formativeness

Abstract

The journal Organization was a precursor of the turn to practice with its 2000 Special Issue, and the burgeoning number of special issues between 2000 and 2011 testifies to the vitality of a field under construction. Nowadays, the consolidation of the field makes it possible to start to understand and spell out differences and, in so doing, to promote lines of practice theorizing with a greater internal consistency. This article contributes to the articulation of differences among various practice theories and within a practice-based theorizing inspired by the sociology of translation. It proposes two concepts—agencement and formativeness—that address two ‘blind spots’ in the conversation on the turn to practice. The first blind spot concerns how we can talk of practices as having agency and the second concerns how we can articulate knowing in practice as a ‘doing while inventing the way of doing’, that is, the creative entanglement of knowing and doing. I shall address these two ‘blind spots’ by saying that one difficulty in addressing them is created by language. Hence, if we want to turn to practice anew, we need to invent/discover/reconfigure a new vocabulary with which to shape new concepts or to circulate existing ones better.