Differential experiences of time in academic work:how qualities of time are made in practice

Increasing time pressures, an accelerating pace of work and the need to juggle an increasing number of competing demands are common experiences of academics working in contemporary universities. At the same time, notions of ‘time famine’ and ‘time squeeze’ have formed relatively long-standing topics of social science research and popular debate. This article draws together interviews with 15 academics based in sociology departments at four UK universities, with existing research on time, work and leisure to explore the social dynamics that underpinned these academics’ experiences. The paper argues that it is not only quantities of overall work, but the qualities of time made through everyday work, which are important for academics’ experiences of time. In particular, the paper identifies three key mechanisms that pull towards the fragmentation of daily and weekly schedules: work–leisure boundary making, organisational structuring of time and the intrinsic rhythms of practices. These mechanisms combined in different configurations depending on institution type and career stage, advantaging some and disadvantaging others. The paper provides an alternative to existing accounts about the effects of new managerialism and audit culture on academic practice, which focus on how increasing amounts of work ‘squeeze time’, and suggests that we should equally be concerned with how qualities of time are made in practice, and the effects of contemporary contexts on these processes

Parking behaviour:The relationship between parking space, everyday life and travel demand in the UK

The paper proposes and develops an original concept, dormant vehicles, which refers to vehicles that are stationary while waiting to be used again, such as current parked cars. The concept involves several types of vehicles (cars, bikes, vans, automated vehicles), durations, temporal locations and rates of recurrence that, with the emergence of new mobility futures, would have diverse forms with significant implications for land use, space and place. New forms of dormant vehicle include shared electric vehicles, dock-less bikes and delivery vans that besides parking would present new in-between use situations such as dropping-off, picking-up, delivering, charging and awaiting repair. The paper highlights that without thinking clearly about these aspects of the future, plans for sustainable, smart cities could fall into a similar trap as in historical versions of automobility and parking, that is, of overlooking dormant vehicles and the ways they shape and are shaped. Rather than parking conveniently disappearing from cities, it is instead likely to change in various respects. The paper sets out to put this research agenda at the forefront, drawing on social theories of practice to propose and develop this new concept, highlighting its potential contribution to urban futures thinking. Ultimately, the paper argues for inverting urban mobility futures to identify the new forms of dormant vehicles associated with them, and consider their implications for land use, space and place

Grow your own:space, planning, practice and everyday futures of domestic food production

The essay explores the relationship between space, planning and everyday practices, focussing on futures of domestic food growing spaces and practices in Italy and the UK. The first case looks at the recent inclusion of the ‘community garden’ in the eco urban housing model in L’Aquila, Italy, and traces the relationships between planning, space and practices as this model is imported into a rural community. The second case explores a longer national trajectory of allotments (plots of land rented for growing vegetables) in the UK. Over time, the allotment becomes endowed with different social and cultural meanings, as its position within policy, systems of provision, urban infrastructure and everyday practices changes. Through considering these examples from past and present, we reflect on anticipated food growing futures in different times and places, and ask how these various ‘experiments’ of policy, planning and practice, are best conceptualised

Authors of Our Own Lives? Individuals, Institutions and the Everyday Practice of Sociology.

Theories of practice suggest that social structure is reproduced and transformed through the everyday enactment of mundane practices. However, individuals' careers, institutions and policy interventions are typically marginalised within conceptual frameworks and empirical studies, of 'practice' and 'social structure'. This thesis redresses this imbalance. It does so by showing that understandings of social reproduction and transformation can be deepened by exploring intersections of everyday practice, careers, institutions and government policy in the lives of sociologists working in different kinds of UK university. Theoretical arguments about the reproduction and transformation of'practice' and 'structure', and how individuals' lives both shape, and are shaped, by these processes, are examined and developed with reference to a programme of empirical research. Interview data relating to everyday practice and careers are woven together with institutional and economic histories of UK universities and the discipline of sociology. By these means the thesis isolates and analyses different 'intersections' within academic life, and details the processes of reproduction and transformation identified in each intersection. The thesis shows that different 'registers' of structure and agency are at work in processes of reproduction and transformation. In the process it develops theoretical contributions from Archer (2000, 2003, 2007), Giddens (1979, 1984), Bourdieu (1980, 1984, 1986) and MacIntyre (1981), and shows how these might be combined to provide new ways of conceptualising the relation between individuals' careers, institutional history and shifting 'landscapes' in practice reproduction and transformation. The implications of this work for analysing and understanding how policies impact on daily lives are discussed

Matters of time:Materiality and the changing temporal organisation of everyday energy consumption

This article seeks to reverse an emphasis in current discussions of peak demand and the times of everyday energy consumption, which suggest that the use of technologies, infrastructures and energy are patterned by temporal features of practice as against such materials being integral to practice temporalities. In an exploratory study of homes and daily lives between 1950 and 2000, materials are foregrounded in the analysis of daily routines and the temporal details of specific practices – doing laundry, keeping warm and keeping oneself clean. The article challenges prominent approaches by demonstrating the material co-constitution of practice temporalities, and thus of the temporal organisation of everyday energy consumption. This material co-constitution is argued for in two ways. First, the article reveals the material dimensions of commonly cited concepts of temporality from Zerubavel, which have previously relied on solely social explanations. Second, the article argues that understanding materials as integral to times of practice (and consumption) requires a new conceptual vocabulary with which to perceive, analyse and discuss such relationships. The article concludes by outlining an initial set of concepts identified through the historical study and discusses the relevance of the emergent framework to contemporary contexts

Making Space for the Car at Home:Planning, priorities and practices

In 2014 there were 28 million private cars in Great Britain. Given that the current standard for residential parking bays is 2.4m*4.8m (HM Government, 2010), and making the modest estimate that every car has just one space, at its owner’s home, that’s 336 million meters square. Nearly all of the Isle of Wight, or placed in a straight line, a third of the distance to the moon. Residential parking space is a big topic, yet just 60 years ago it was not part of neighbourhood plans at all. This Chapter traces how residential parking became a normal, legitimate and planned for aspect of everyday life, drawing on archive research about Stevenage New Town between 1946 and 1970. The Chapter analyses the relationship between the practices of planners – in particular their understanding of future parking space demand - and the changing demands of tenants for parking space near to the home. Through this analysis, the argument is made that parking space is not simply a necessary outcome of automobility, rather it plays a critical part in anticipating and embedding automobility too. The implications of the analysis for present and future practices of planning are discussed

Everyday futures:A new interdisciplinary area of research

An interdisciplinary group of researchers have formed the Everyday Futures Network in July 2016. An inaugural workshop was held at Lancaster University's Institute for Social Futures. Tim Chatterton and Georgia Newmarch's article examines the diversity of ways of living that coexists at any moment in time between different cultures and social groups. The authors argue that some members of the society, including technology designers and researchers, have more power than others to decide the types of futures that get promoted and prioritized. Daniel Welch, Margit Keller, and Guiliana Mandich point out that all too often future visions such as the circular economy gloss over the changed everyday lives essential to their realization. Maureen Meadows and Matthijs Kouw offer a method for developing multiple visions of a better everyday future, emphasizing plurality and potentially conflicting ideas of the good life

Qualities of connective tissue in hospital life:how complexes of practices change over time

This chapter calls for a practice theory which begins with complexes of practice and not ‘a practice’, and that focuses on the relationships between connections (interconnections). Through examples of hospital life, the chapter develops the concept of connective tissue which both holds complexes of practice together and that is itself an essential feature of practices. The chapter argues that connective tissue has multiple qualities. Studying the interconnections between these qualities is the key to understanding change in hospital life, and other complexes of practice, over time

Interventions in practice:reframing policy approaches to consumer behaviour

This report introduces a novel approach to sustainability policy— a practice perspective. We argue that social practices are a better target of intervention for sustainability policy than ‘behaviour’, ‘choice’ or technical innovation alone. Understanding the dynamics of practices offers us a window into transitions towards sustainability. We consume resources as part of the practices that make up everyday life—showering, doing the laundry, cooking or driving—what we might call inconspicuous or ordinary consumption. While we may have degrees of choice in how we perform these practices, access to resources (economic, social, cultural), norms of social interaction, as well as infrastructures and institutional organisation constrain our autonomy. Practices are social phenomena—their performance entails the reproduction of cultural meanings, socially learnt skills and common tools, technologies and products. This shift of perspective places practices, not individuals or infrastructures, at the centre stage of analysis. Taking practices as the unit of analysis moves policy beyond false alternatives—beyond individual or social, behaviour or infrastructure. A practice perspective re-frames the question from “How do we change individuals’ behaviours to be more sustainable?” to “How do we shift everyday practices to be more sustainable?” After all, ‘behaviours’ are largely individuals’ performances of social practices