3 Understanding Practice(s) and Practising Rod Bain and Christopher Mueller INTRODUCTION What is practice—and what is itnot? Practice is an expression used frequently by social scientists, bur with a variety of meanings, from a common-sense understanding that it is what people do, to highly theorised accounts of practices as a means of understanding social life (Schatzki 2012). For some scholars, practice and doing are distinct from theory and knowing. For a growing number of other researchers, such separation is best resisted. Through its title, this book signals a clear interest in knowledge and practice in organisations. Yet, what does practice mean in the context of studying knowledge and practice in organisations, management and policy? The idea that practice is what people do is reflected in the Oxford Eng- lish Dictionary (OED), but even here we begin to see that the concept is potentially more complex than this. Practice (noun) and practising (verb) are defined in a number of ways by the OED (Oxford English Dictionary Online 2015), including: * The carrying out or exercise of a profession * The actual application or use of an idea, belief or method, as opposed to the theory or principles of it * To pursue or be engaged in a particular occupation, profes art * To carry out or perform (a particular activity, method or custom) habit- ually or regularly * An established legal procedure, or the law and custom on which such procedure is based on, skill or ‘These definitions suggest that practice involves people, their actions, and the repetition of those actions. Practice relates to human activities that may be repetitive, or performed regularly or habitually. These activities may also be customary, or perhaps traditional. However, these definitions also sug- gest a distinction—that practice may be understood as theory’s other; doing something as opposed to pursuing abstract theoretical representations ofcomplex human activities. In this view, practice and practising are under- stood dichotomously, as distinct from abstract or theoretical knowledge. In recent years a ‘practice turn’ has been identified in social science, and not least in management and organisation studies (Schatzki ef af. 2001; Gherardi 2013; Nicolini 2013). This turn is not a simple conceptual manoeu- vre. Eikeland (2007) has identified at least three ways of turning to practice: firstly, by turning our theoretical gaze more intensely on the practice of others; secondly, by turning our back on theory; and thirdly, by turning our critical attention to our own research practices. With regard to each of these turns, there are many ways to understand practice, and still more ways to access it through empirical research. Different understandings of practice are related to different assumptions about the nature of the world, and what we can say about it. That is to say, a discussion of practices raises ontological and epistemological issues. This chapter discusses the above issues and aims to provide a conceptual foundation for the discussion of practice in the remainder of the book. We begin with the long-standing distinction between practice and theory, and also discuss the separation of policy and practice, whieh is a variant of this. We then discuss the (re)turn to practice, which challenges the separation of practice from theory/policy. We continue with a discussion of how practice has been theorised within this return to practice, particularly focusing on an approach which assumes that the social world consists in practices (Schatzki 2002). Finally, we discuss the benefits offered by a practice theory approach to understanding the social world. DISTINGUISHING PRACTICE FROM THEORY AND POLICY The separation of doing from knowing, of practical knowledge from ana- Iytical or theoretical knowledge, has been a trope of Western thought since at least Plato and Aristotle. Plato was clear that philosophers, who engaged in the pursuit of truth, were superior to practitioners, who engaged in more material and mundane activities. Aristotle’s contribution, however, is less clear-cut, Aristotle conceived a tripartite model of knowledge and know- ing (episteme, phronesis, and techne) that paradoxically justifies a theory/ practice distinction, while also supporting a more hybrid understanding of knowing and doing (Nicolini 2013s see also Chapter 2 Knowledge). Descartes is a widely cited supporter of a theory/practice, or knowing/ doing, dichotomy. A Cartesian world view, which has endured in Western thought since the Enlightenment, is characterised by the superiority of mind over body, and thought over action, This view is related to.a number of other persistent binary relationships, including subject/object, human/non-human (including materiality and nature), and head/hands, where the second type is usually understood as inferior to the first. This view is associated with a pos- itivist epistemology, and the privileging of objective knowledge and reasonover other modes of knowing (Ferraro & Reid 2013). Allied to this, the word ‘practice’ has also come to describe a particular kind of knowledge— practice knowledge—(see Chapter 2 Knowledge), where performing an activity or carrying out a particular form of work produces understandings of that activity that may be distinct, and valued differently, from analytical or abstract representation of that form of working. A distinction is often made between policy and practice. This is in line with the OED’s second definition: that practice is the actual application of an idea, belief or method, as opposed to the principles of it. Those working in policy settings, including international, national, regional and local governments, may articulate desired policy not—by those working in practice settings (such as local service delivery organisations). Studies of policy implementation (Hill & Huppe 2014) have highlighted the importance of differentiating between policy intentions and how policies are enacted in practice. These studies focus on how policy intentions are mediated and transformed by the actions and inactions of practitioners working in front-line service delivery. Michael Lipsky (1971, 2010} referred to these practitioners as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ and found that they exercise considerable discretion in pressured situations. The importance of understanding the differing perspectives, concerns and routines of those who work in practice settings, as opposed to policy roles, has been picked up by those concerned with improving the use of research- based knowledge in public service delivery (Davies e¢ al. 2000; Nutley et ai. 2007}. From the 1990s onwards, there has been much interest in the use of research-based knowledge to improve both public policy and service deliv- ery, often under the banner of promoting more evidence-based policy and practice. At times in these discussions, some fairly sharp distinctions have rections, but policies are implemented—or been laments about a knowing-doing gap, which is frequently considered to stem from the divergent nature and concerns of science, policy and practice. However, there is some acknowledgement—as evident in later chapters of this edited collection—that such a sharp distinction is not always so neat as it might at first appear (Nutley et al. 2007, see also Chapters 10 Environ- ment, 11 Healthcare, and 13 Knowledge mobilisation). (RE)TURNING TO PRACTICE THROUGH DISSOLVING CARTESIAN DUALISM Although distinctions between practice and theory (or policy) may be accepted within some arenas of management studies, others are uncomfort- able with such a contrast. A separation of practice from policy/theory is explicitly challenged by some theoretical accounts of practices and practis- ing. The recent interest in practice is based around the insight that social phenomena such as “knowledge, meaning, human activity, science, power,