Practice at the Crossroads: When practice meets theory, a rumination

Consumer practices, work practices, not to mention management, design and research practices. The notion of “practice” remains core to much of what ethnographers in industry examine, expose and aim to inform. This paper questions: while we study practice(s), while we may frame our research and analysis with sensitivity towards rendering visible the richness or particularity of peoples' practice, what have we really learned about practice? In part aimed at considering whether and how the work performed by ethnographers in industry advances or critiques theories of practice as explored by Bourdieu and others, the paper aims to reconcile the fact that we are “there” at the behest of our business counterparts to have an impact and affect change. So the question shifts from not only how we use and understand concepts of practice to how it frames the expectations of our business partners and stakeholders. What I have found is that there is both productive overlap and significant slippage between our (theoretically buttressed and anthropologically‐resonant) notions of practice and the (action‐oriented, practical ones) of our business counterparts. This piece is intended as a reflective rumination on the notion of “practice” at the cusp of theory and business to appraise its value, present and future, to both theoretical and business interests.