Introduction: diffractive readings in practice theory

Practice has emerged as a central interest and site of work in contemporary sociology and cultural studies. This is particularly the case in fields of professional practice, education and change, where practice is a contested notion taken up in diverse research, policy and operational settings. This problematisation of ‘practice’ or theoretical ‘turn’ challenges liberal humanist and neoliberal capitalist approaches to research, including conventional understandings of human subjectivity, epistemology, and the purposes and practices of research. In this introductory chapter, we draw on the concept of diffraction to provide a productive reading of the fifteen contributions that constitute Practice Theory and Education. Inspired by a diffractive theoretical approach, we examine these contributions to see what patterns of resonance and dissonance are produced as we read practice through the chapters. Our discussion effects a re-sensitising of perennial questions around representation, agency and transformation and their interactions. We argue that while practice theories support a critique of conventional ways of understanding practices, they offer much more by unsettling habitual ways of thinking, reading and writing, and through this offer hope for the disruption of inequitable and unjust practices.