Social Practices and Dynamic Non-Humans

272 Pages·2019·3.299 MB·English

by  Cecily Maller, Yolande Strengers

ECDEITCEIDL YB YM ALLER & YOLANDE STRENGERS
Social Practices and Dynamic Non-Humans
Cecily Maller • Yolande Strengers
Editors
Social Practices and
Dynamic
Non-Humans
Nature, Materials and Technologies
Editors
Cecily Maller Yolande Strengers
Centre for Urban Research Centre for Urban Research
RMIT University RMIT University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Melbourne, VIC, Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-92188-4 ISBN 978-3-319-92189-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92189-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950831
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Pashkov Andrey / Alamy Stock Photo
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
This book emerged from a symposium titled ‘Animals, Automated
Devices and Ecosystems: A Symposium on the Agencies of Dynamic
Non-humans in Theories of Practice’ that we convened in Barcelona,
9–10 October 2015 at RMIT Europe. RMIT University’s Centre for
Urban Research and RMIT Europe generously supported the event by
providing a vibrant venue and delicious catering, both of which were
highly conducive to theoretical inspiration and discussion. We invited
contributors from a range of disciplines working with dynamic non-
human entities or phenomena and social practices to provoke discussion
and advance conceptualisations of non-humans in theories of social prac-
tice. As many rich and intriguing ideas emerged during the event, devel-
oping a book to share these contributions with a wider audience became
the logical next step.
We are deeply indebted to generous research fellowships that provided
the time and intellectual space to pursue this project and bring it to frui-
tion. Cecily Maller acknowledges her RMIT University Vice Chancellor’s
Senior Research Fellowship, and Yolande Strengers thanks the Australian
Research Council for her Discovery Early Career Researcher Award on
the automated smart home.
The contributors to this collection are what made this book possible,
and we thank them for their enthusiasm, insights, and timely and patient
responses to our original provocations and editorial feedback. We are
v
vi Acknowledgements
privileged to have this opportunity to work with such a fantastic collec-
tion of scholars as reflected in the quality of the contributions found
within these pages. This extends to those scholars who attended the 2015
Barcelona Symposium but were unable to contribute to this book collec-
tion (Mike Hazas, Stanley Blue, Yamini Narayanan, Alan Latham, and
Giuseppe Salvia).
We acknowledge and thank ourselves for maintaining a remarkably
balanced intellectual collaboration and friendship both before and dur-
ing the completion of this project. The idea for this symposium and book
was conceived in a local bar and will probably be celebrated there as well.
We are proud to say that we are often in the position of not being able to
decide who should be the lead author of our publications, as was the case
for the introductory chapter to this book. At a time when academics, and
academia, are under increasing pressure, we are grateful to have the sup-
port, humour, and intellectual coaching of each other and our fantastic
colleagues in the Beyond Behaviour Change Programme and Centre for
Urban Research at RMIT University.
Like all book projects of this kind, there is a serious risk of drowning
in the sea of forms and publishing procedures involved in navigating the
terrain of permissions, formatting, and deadlines. We are very grateful to
Sarah Robertson for keeping us buoyant during this time by providing
invaluable research and editorial assistance during the book’s final stages
and successfully project managing our way through the publication pro-
cess. We also thank the editorial and production teams at Palgrave
Macmillan for making this a relatively painless process, especially for
meeting our request for the book’s cover design.
Lastly but in no diminished way, we acknowledge that in living and
working in Melbourne and Victoria, we are in a country belonging to the
Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations. We pay our respects to elders of
the past, present, and future and recognise that their lands and waters
were never ceded.
Contents
1 Dynamic Non-humans in a Changing World 1
Yolande Strengers and Cecily Maller
Part I Nature, Materiality and Processes 23
2 Thriving in the Anthropocene: Understanding Human-
Weed Relations and Invasive Plant Management Using
Theories of Practice 25
Jennifer Atchison
3 Seeing Wood for the Trees: Placing Biological Processes
Within Practices of Heating and Harvesting 47
Jenny Rinkinen
4 ‘Dynamic’ Non-human Animals in Theories of Practice:
Views from the Subaltern 63
Paula Arcari
vii
viii Contents
5 Dynamic Bodies in Theories of Social Practice: Vibrant
Materials and More- than- Human Assemblages 87
Cecily Maller
6 Mobile Drinking: Bottled Water Practices
and Ontological Politics 109
Gay Hawkins
7 Immersed in Thermal Flows: Heat as Productive
of and Produced by Social Practices 129
Elspeth Oppermann and Gordon Walker
Part II Technologies, Automation and Performativity 149
8 Displacement: Attending to the Role of Things
in Theories of Practice Through Design Research 151
Ron Wakkary, Sabrina Hauser, and Doenja Oogjes
9 How Software Matters: Connective Tissue and Self-
Driving Cars 173
Janine Morley
10 Automated Artefacts as Co-performers of Social Practices:
Washing Machines, Laundering and Design 193
Lenneke Kuijer
11 Robots and Roomba Riders: Non-human Performers
in Theories of Social Practice 215
Yolande Strengers
Conten ts ix
12 Automation, Smart Homes and Symmetrical
Anthropology: Non- humans as Performers of Practices? 235
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen
Index 255
Notes on Contributors
Paula Arcari (PhD Candidate/Research Assistant, Beyond Behaviour Change
Research Programme, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne,
Australia) has a background in climate and environmental science. Her research
uses the emergence of so-called ethical and sustainable meat to explore how
meat consumption and the use of animals as food continue to be (re)constituted
as enduring and resilient parts of social practices.
Jennifer Atchison (Senior Lecturer, Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental
Research, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of
Wollongong, Australia) focuses research on the material interactions of human-
nature relationships. She is primarily interested in the ways non-humans (par-
ticularly plants, but also others) shape human lives and provoke us to think
differently and live more sustainably in the world.
Kirsten  Gram-Hanssen (SBI, Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg
University, Copenhagen, Denmark) leads the research group on Sustainable
Housing and Cities in the Danish Building Research Institute, and her main
research interest for the past 15 years is on sustainable housing, everyday life
practices, and energy consumption.
Sabrina Hauser (PhD Candidate/Research Assistant, School of Interactive Arts
and Technology, Simon Fraser University, Canada, and Instructor in Interaction
Design, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Canada) is an interaction design
researcher with a background in design and information science. Her PhD
xi