The Transformation to Organic: Insights from Practice Theory - Organic Food and Agriculture: New Trends and Developments in the Social Sciences - page 175

Following Reckwitz (2003) and others, we apply the idea of embodiment to define collective
social practices by drawing attention to the site where practices are embodied and expressed
by certain physicality. Things and embodied practices are also the carrier of rules or
regulations, resources or certain knowledge (Reckwitz 2002a). Things represent rules and
norms but they are also the source for their modification or rejection.
Material infrastructures are also of high importance in our investigation, because some
investments in farms can be extremely difficult to change. Many are long lasting and path
dependent, e.g. hog houses. Some hinder change, depend on their amortization costs (see
also Arthur 1989). This path dependency could have a huge impact on change and with that
on practices (Latacz-Lohmann et al. 2001).
3.3 Cognitive-Mental processes
Cognitive (perception, cognition) emotional or affective processes are “non-material”
processes, …” as well as cognitive bases of behaviour” (Warde 2006, 140). Cognitive-mental
processes are part of individual and group practices, and they contribute to the formation of
structures. Rules for example are based on, and integrate cognitive processes (see teleo-
affective processes below). Knowledge processes arise in discourses, they contribute to
orders of knowledge and they are part of a practice. 6 Discourses are specific social practices
of representation, in which cultural codes are manifested (Reckwitz 2006, 43, cit. in Jonas
2009, 10). Codes are part of these social practices and enable these practices (Reckwitz 2008c,
17). Culturally formed codes transport the sense, they differentiate between 'in - and
outside', that what is part of a system and that what is excluded (Jonas 2009, 10). “These
conceptualized 'mental' activities of understanding, knowing how and desiring are
necessary elements and qualities of a practice in which the single individual participates, not
qualities of the individual” (Reckwitz 2002b, 249, 250).
3.4 Individual performance
Individuals perform, or they adapt and adopt their practices to structural realities on their
own terms (Greve et al. 2009). Practice(s) is created in the mind, but subject to the
availability of things and artifacts, as well as an individual's capacity and capability to
embody practices (Reckwitz 2006, 40); they are always related to an individual's concrete
practice. The adoption of practices by an individual is also heavily influenced through the
socialization process of an individual (Shove & Pantzar 2005, 2007, cit in Jaeger-Erben 2010,
254), e.g. former execution of specific social practices and therefore generalization of these
practices seems limited.
Through the social practices, an individual creates her/his own social position (Reckwitz 2006,
34, cit. in Jonas 2009, 13) and an identity. This understanding follows Bourdieu's habitus
concept (Pouliot 2008, 273, 274), with respect to these characteristics: interpretation from a
historical perspective, formed through individual and collective experiences; a reservoir of
practical knowledge, learned through practicing in the world; relationality learned through
inter-subjective experiences; dispositional, in the sense that that habitus does not determine
forms of action in a mechanistic way, but encourages actors towards specific actions.
For Reckwitz (2002a, 207), the individual's subjectivity is created through cultural codes,
and individual capacity for reflection (2006, 40). That is, individuals establish their own
6 See also Reckwitz's discourse / practice approach (2002b, 2008b)