A collaboration between:
The University of Manchester
Edinburgh University
Essex University
Lancaster University
With associated fellowships at:
Cardiff University
Salford University
Queens University Belfast
Leeds University
Habits, routines
and
temporalities of
consumption
Dale Southerton
Sustainable Practices Research
Group,
Sustainable Consumption Institute
Sociology
Manchester University
Funded by ESRC, DEFRA and the Scottish Government
Consumer Behaviour and Sustainability
• It is widely accepted that contemporary forms, and volumes, of
consumption in advanced capitalist societies are a principal source
of human-induced climate change.
• No surprise that changing consumer behaviour has become a
prominent narrative in policy and academic debates surrounding
sustainability.
• The ‘portfolio model of action’ underpins the dominant ontological
position within such debates. This model suggests that:
‘individuals carry a relatively stable and pre-existing set of
beliefs and desires from context to context. Given the situation,
they select from this portfolio “those elements that seem
relevant and [use] them to decide on a course of
action”.’ (Whitford, 2002: 325)
The value-action gap
• The value – action gap is often presented as being the consequence
of habits and routines, variables that complicate rational responses
to policy initiatives.
• E.g. nudge: the brain has two systems - one which is uncontrolled,
unconscious and fast; the other reflective, controlled, deliberative
and slow.
• Thaler and Sunstein (2008) = much behaviour is governed by
automatic and intuitive mental processes (the second system), and
can be described as habitual.
• Habitual action is reduced to little more than automated responses
to contextual stimuli and a deficiency of ‘portfolio models’ of action.
• However, the terms habit and routine are often conflated. Taken
together they generically capture the performance of everyday
actions that appear to exhibit, in various combinations, shared
cultural conventions, recurrent and non-reflexive behaviour.
The organisation of this paper
Three conceptual moves:
(1)Consumption as appropriation within the course of performing
practices – 3 variants of habitual action (dispositions, procedures,
sequences)
(2)Temporalities and practices – practices are shaped by, and shape,
temporalities through 3 mechanisms (competition for participants time;
the temporal demands of practices; temporal rhythms)
(3)Temporalities as one mechanism that configures habitual and
routine forms of action.
To reach the following conclusion:
Habitual and routine actions are configured in many ways, but
temporalities are critical to their ordering and coordination. To change
the patterns of consumption that underpin everyday life requires greater
attention to the temporalities of habits and routines.
Move 1
Consumption: from acquisition to
appropriation
• Warde (2010): three fundamental dimensions of consumption
which broadly correspond with different phases of intellectual
scrutiny:
– acquisition;
– appreciation;
– appropriation.
• Appropriation - analytical attention shifts away from conspicuous
and highly symbolic forms of consumption toward accounts of
inconspicuous, ordinary and mundane forms of everyday
consumption.
Theories of Practice (TP)
• TP are very diverse, but one common feature is to take practices as
the fundamental unit of social analysis.
• Key distinction between practices as entities and as performances:
– Practices as entities are generally treated as configurations of recognizable,
intelligible and describable elements which comprise their conditions of existence
(although there is no common agreement on what these ‘elements’ are).
– Practices are also performed.
• The relationship between practices and performances is recursive:
practices configure performances, and practices are reproduced and
stabilized, adapted and innovated through performances.
• Practices as stable entities are reproduced through faithful
performances that are often described as habitual and routine, and
it is these faithful performances of practices that need to change if
patterns of consumption are to shift in more sustainable directions.
Habits
• Swartz (2002) outlined the key characteristics of habits
as:
–
–
–
–
–
predictability and regularity of particular actions (routine?);
a unifying force of action within and across socio-cultural groups;
collectively derived actions;
a conservative force;
conditioned by institutions.
• Camic (1986: 1044), in his classic essay on habit, settled
on the following definition:
“a more or less self-actuating disposition or tendency to engage
in a previously adopted or acquired form of action”.
Conceptual slippage
• Usage of the terms habit and routines seems to slip between three
observations:
1. many everyday actions are performed with a high degree of recurrence,
periodicity and a degree of predictability;
2. much action appears to be performed without reflexive deliberation;
3. many such actions are culturally shared whether across whole societies or
social groups.
• 1 + 2 = mostly associated with approaches that present habits and
routines as remnants of past reflexive deliberations that re-occur as
necessary mental short-cuts for navigating the complexities of daily
life. Non-reflexive and recurrent actions as ‘auto-pilot’.
• 2 = automaticity triggered by external environmental stimuli
• 3 = mostly associated with cultural sociology – about how people
learn and acquire dispositions and understand procedures (or rules)
for the appropriate performance of practices.
Conceptual variants of the terms habit
and routine:
• To overcome this conceptual slippage, Warde and
Southerton (2012: 20) suggest a conceptual framework
that presents three forms of action that are generically
captured by the terms habits and routines:
– Dispositions: ‘a propensity or tendency to act in a particular manner
when suitable circumstances arise. Dispositions can provide an impetus
to action both in situations which do not necessarily occur very
frequently and, by virtue of transposition, in situations not previously
encountered’.
– Procedures: ‘previously learned and ready to hand, waiting to be drawn
upon when appropriate circumstances present themselves’.
– Sequences of activity: ‘guided by social signals or by equipment which
more or less orchestrate’ the performance of practices.
Implicating temporalities in accounts of
habits and routines
• Temporalities (e.g. duration, periodicity, tempo,
sequence & synchronization), feature in each of these
conceptual variants of the term habit and routines, e.g.:
– dispositions (to perform a practice fast or slow, devote time to it, …),
– procedures (temporal rules of competent performance – not overstaying one’s welcome),
– or sequence (the temporal ordering of actions).
• Raises the questions:
– What is the relationship between practices and temporalities?
– To what extent might temporalities reproduce practices as stable
entities?
– What role might temporalities play in shaping habitual and routine forms
of action?
Move 2
Temporalities and practices.
• Shove et al. (2012) = experiences of time are
experiences of practices; the passing of time, tempos,
repetition, recollection of past times and anticipation or
imaginations of the future are mediated by the practices
through which that time is experienced.
• Beyond this broad observation a parsimonious
categorization of the relationship between temporalities
and practices can be presented through three themes:
– time as a resource;
– practices as configuring temporalities;
– and temporal rhythms.
Time as a resource
• That time is a resource, much like money, used or spent in relation
to different practices is an uncontroversial observation. Treating time
as a finite, objective, resource and analysing it in zero-sum terms
has produced some critical understandings of consumption and
social change (e.g. Schor, 1992 & 1998).
• Shove (2012) argues that practices (as entities) need to colonize
time slots in order to taken on habitual and routine forms. In this
respect, not only do practices compete for time but also for temporal
locations with the day, week, month, and so on.
• Practices compete for the time of practitioners – and the most
successful practices are those that colonize the resource of time
such that their performance (at particular times) become habitual
and routine.
The Temporal demands of practices
• Practices produce their own temporal demands based upon the
degree to which they require coordination (or synchronisation) with
other people or practices.
• Practices also demand certain durations, tempos, sequences and
frequencies of performance: practices place demands on
temporalities (in addition to competing with other practices for time).
• The organization of everyday practices and the capacity for those
practices to become ‘habitual and routine’ depends on the temporal
demands that those practices place on its practitioners.
• The temporal demands of different kinds of practice have the effect
of ordering the temporal rhythms of everyday life.
Temporal rhythms
• But, temporalities are not entirely
responsive to the demands of practices.
• Many collective temporal rhythms
coordinate and order the way that
practices are performed – e.g. working
times, school times, eating times,
shopping times, and so on…
Move 3.Connecting Temporalities of
practices to habitual forms of action
If habitual and routine forms of action are the observable
performances of stable practices (as entities),
then the three thematic categories that highlight the
recursive relationship between practices and
temporalities (Move 2) are likely to play an important role
in framing and holding in place those actions.
In other words: how might the temporalities of practices
relate to the three variant forms of action (dispositions,
procedures and sequences) highlighted in ‘Move 1’?
Temporalities and dispositions
• Two ways of conceptualising the relationship between the
temporalities of practices and dispositions:
1. Consider how dispositions affect the allocation of practices within time.
E.g. the professional middle classes devote more time to practices such as eating
out and reading books (Gronow & Southerton); differential dispositions towards
the maintenance of clear boundaries between working time and home-life
(Brannen).
2. How dispositions affect the performance of practices.
E.g. Gershuny’s ‘badge of honour’ suggests that the middle class perform some
practices at a higher tempo and intensity; Lamont’s self-actualization of practice
performance leading to greater temporal commitments (duration, frequency,
synchronisation).
• Actions derived from dispositions shape the temporal performances
of practices that appear ‘habitual’.
Temporalities and procedures
• Zerubavel (1981): temporal regularities provide a blueprint (or
temporal map) for procedural performances of practices.
• Four principles:
–
–
–
–
Rigid sequential structures
Expected durations
Standardized temporal locations
Uniform rates of recurrence
• Such temporal regularities produce:
“a reliable repertoire of what is expected , likely, or unlikely to take place within
certain temporal boundaries… [and]… adds a strong touch of predictability to
the world around us” (Zerubavel, 1981: 12).
• Temporalities guide, or provide the rules, that underpin many
procedural forms of action.
Temporalities and sequences
• Sequences of action both produce and are held stable
by temporal rhythms.
• Technologies, infrastructures and institutions script
sequences of action (e.g. Latour’s oversized keyfobs,
Shove’s laundry systems, and Skinner’s account of the
school-run).
• Sequences of actions that appear habitual and routine
are conditioned by the socio-technical ordering of
practices.
Conclusions (i)
• Habits and routines are not human deficiencies of the
portfolio model of action.
• Need to be careful not to conflate different forms of
action under the generic banner of these terms.
• If the terms are to be used then they reflect/describe the
reproduction of stable practices:
habits and routines are the observable patterns of
action that result from the reproductive
performances of stable practices as entities
Conclusions (conceptual moves 1 & 2)
• Conceptual clarification is required to differentiate between different
forms of action that are generically described as habitual and routine
actions (conceptual MOVE 1 in this account).
• Distinguishing between:
– dispositions (orientations toward practices),
– procedures (the rules for competent performance), and
– sequences (the scripting or ordering of actions)
represents a useful starting, but not an end, point of such
conceptual work.
• The next step is to examine how these forms of action are shaped
and reproduced.
• It is suggested that temporalities represent one feature of daily life
that can shed light on this question by considering time as a
resource, the temporal demands of practices, and temporal rhythms
(conceptual MOVE 2 in this account).
Conclusions (conceptual move 3)
The third conceptual move argued that the three variant forms of
habitual action together with the three thematic relationships
between temporalities and practices highlighted mechanisms
through which temporalities shape different forms of action:
–dispositions shape how social groups allocate practices in time,
and the temporal demands placed on the performance of practices.
–The performance of many practices follow procedures – and such
procedures are framed by temporal regularities that guide such
performances.
–Finally, the temporal sequencing of actions coordinate and order
practices.
Final Conclusions
•
•
•
•
•
•
To return to the opening problem: the value – action gap strongly suggests
no clear translation between values/attitudes and actions/ behaviour.
Recognising that habits and routines are terms that cover ‘different’ modes
of action and that those modes of action are shaped by a range of
‘mechanisms’ is a first step.
I have argued (as a second step) that temporalities are one critical
mechanism that shapes, and are shaped by, different forms of action.
It follows, that if we want to shift human actions in more sustainable
directions we need to focus on different forms of action, and pay closer
attention to mechanisms such as temporalities.
Schor’s & Gershuny’s accounts of working hours, and accounts that focus
on changing the temporal coordination of practices are just two examples of
approaches that seek to do just that.
More progressive approaches would seek to target the temporal
organization and coordination of practices, and the dispositions, procedures
and sequences of action that underpin those practices.