Keywords

As has been presented in the last section of the previous chapter, the reality of contemporary cities does not fit into a black-and-white scheme. The variety of urban forms of sociability and grassroots processes of city-making reveal an important deficiency in community studies that requires (re)integration of territorial and psychosocial aspects of community (locality and communality) as well as overcoming the agency–structure divide. In other words, in order to describe the nature of the processes of social becoming of postmodern urban communities, it is necessary to study both the communal production of the new locality and the territorial embeddedness of the new communality. Therefore, both the holism and environmental determinism of the “new locality” and the individualism and cultural reductionism of the “new communality” limit our capabilities for description of contemporary forms of urban communities. The city is a space for diverse communities that transcend, on the one hand, neighbourhoods and ties resulting from spatial proximity and functional interdependence, and, on the other, nonlocal personal networks and imagined cultural communities detached from their spatial context. Both the nature of these communities and the mechanisms of their (re)production require investigation. What is needed, therefore, is a new approach to the analysis of urban local communities that would take into account the subjectivity of urban actors and the structural pressures of the space in which they are located on the one hand, and the cultural and spatial aspects of integration processes in the city on the other.

Therefore, instead of neighbourhoods, networks or collective cultural consciousness, I propose to study community practices embedded in urban spaces. I assume that community-forming processes take place in the sphere of collective cultural consciousness and are realised through the community cultural practices in which individuals participate embedded in a given territory and that urban space is an important element and facilitator of these practices. I thus propose to make urban cultural spaces and the various community practices taking place in them the object of community studies. To this end, I draw on scene theory, which allows us to reconnect the spatial and imaginative dimensions of community, and social practice theory (TSP), which, by breaking down the traditional oppositions of sociology, makes it possible to grasp the field of phenomena that escape the previously presented strands of community studies in the urban environment. Therefore, the perspective of practice theory, together with the notion of the urban scene enable the exploration of phenomena and processes of urban commonality that have been largely unexplored so far. Above all, however, they contribute to a better understanding of the dual, spatial-cultural character of contemporary urban communities and thus significantly enrich sociology’s response to the Community Question with strands that have not been given due attention so far. The use of the proposed perspectives in the study of urban commonality not only makes it possible to explore the nature of the spatial-cultural processes of formation and reproduction of urban community practices, but also provides answers to questions about the effectiveness of various kinds of tools of urban cultural policies and cultural space planning, especially in the field of creative placemaking or revitalisation and regeneration, and thus indicates the desired directions of their development.

Theory of Scenes

Particularly useful and attractive relational, cultural and practice-based comprehension and operationalisation of urban space (and its community-forming potential) that allows to reintegrate the territorial and cultural aspects of community and link locality with communality may be provided by the Theory of Scenes which I make a first pillar of my approach. Scene theory was initiated and developed by Terry N. Clark and Daniel A. Silver within the so-called New Chicago School (cf. Clark, 1998, 2011) in response to the cultural turn in social theory, which also resonated in urban studies, contributing to the development of a new strand known as cultural urban studies (eg. Borer, 2006; Clark, 2003; Florida, 2002; Glaeser et al., 2001; Landry, 2002, 2006; Lloyd, 2007; Zukin, 1995, 1998; etc.). The cultural turn consists in treating culture as an autonomous (and not—as until now—only derivative) sphere of social reality and noticing its complex influence on the other spheres of social life (cf. e.g. Alexander & Smith, 2001, 2018; Ray & Sayer, 1999). Culture is no longer just a context of social processes—it becomes an important centre of action in society at large and becomes so for social scientists and policymakers. The new Chicago school, which is fully part of the cultural urban studies, retains the classical assumptions of its founders about the ecological processes of structuring urban space but combines them with the achievements of cultural studies and instead of natural areas understood as culturally and socially homogeneous spatial units, whose socio-cultural character is derived from the categorical characteristics of the inhabitants, such as the so-called “classical explanatory variables”, i.e. class or ethnicity, it proposes the notion of scene, understood, as I will show further on, in terms of aesthetic practices that give space its specific character. The authors of the approach explain how they understand the scene in this illustrative way: “Scene has several meanings. One usage emphasizes shared interest in a specific activity: the ‘jazz scene’, the ‘mountain climbing scene’, an the ‘beauty pageant scene’. Another highlights the character of specific places, typically neighbourhoods or cities: the ‘Haight-Ashbury scene’, the ‘Wicker Park scene’ and the ‘Nashville scene’. Our approach to ‘scene’ extends these first two meanings, seeking a more general level of analysis. As a first step on this analytical ladder, think about a neighbourhood as a film director, painter, or poet might. There are people doing many things, sitting in a cafe, entering and exiting the grocery, milling about after a church service, cheering the home team. Then ask what style of life, spirit, meaning, mood, is expressed in all of this. Is it dangerous or exotic, familial or avant-garde? How could others share in that spirit, experience and embrace its meaning sympathetically, or reject it? What, in other words, is the character of this particular place that links to a broader and more universal themes? (…) This third meaning—the aesthetic meaning of a place—is our focus” (2016: 1–2).

It should be noted that this is not a theory from the point of view of classical scientific standards, however, the authors attribute the qualities of a theory to their approach, as, in their opinion, the set of concepts and analytical categories they propose, together with the developed methodology, not only allow an accurate description of the social reality of contemporary cities, but also make it possible to explain various phenomena occurring in the city space. Thus, “scene theory” fulfils—in their view—the tasks of theory. The authors have, in fact, conducted extensive research in recent decades on the impact of scenes on various social phenomena in different cultural contexts and have gathered around them a wide range of researchers from all over the world representing different disciplines. These studies have proved that the scenes components inform many important phenomena, including population change by age cohorts (Wu, 2013), creative class migration (Navarro et al., 2012b), economic growth (Navarro & Rodriguez Garcia, 2014; Silver, 2012; Silver et al., 2011), functioning of real estate markets like rent levels and changes (Wu, 2013), neighbourhood change and gentrification processes (Navarro, 2013; Navarro et al. 2012a), sustainable transportation like the use of public transit, bicycles, and more (Jeong, 2018), types of civic organisations (Knudsen et al., 2015), residents’ voting preferences (Silver & Clark, 2016; Silver & Miller, 2014), cultural practices (Navarro & Rodriguez Garcia, 2014), healthy lifestyles (Zapata-Moya et al., 2020), and many others. I will show that the theory of scenes can also benefit community studies in explaining community practices in contemporary cities (Klekotko, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b, 2020).

Drawing on the achievements of the cultural turn in urban studies and the ecological heritage of the Chicago School, the authors argue that culture structures urban space and shapes the processes within it. At the heart of the concept of cultural scenes is the belief that in contemporary post-industrial societies, it is the consumption of culture in the broadest sense, rather than residence or production that determines the character of a city and at the same time constitutes the primary factor in its growth. Consumption takes on various social forms that shape the space of the city and determine the dynamics of its development. A scene is defined as a dynamic system of several elements: (1) place (physical environment) and its aesthetics (architecture, greenery, etc.), (2) people, along with their demographic and socio-economic characteristics, (3) practices of cultural consumption carried out by these people in the place (sitting in a park, getting tattooed, having a coffee in a coffee shop, etc.), (4) values / symbolic meanings that underlie these practices (Silver & Clark, 2016; Silver et al., 2007; Silver et al., 2011). Each scene can be described as a specific combination of symbolic and cultural values that underlie the cultural consumption practices undertaken in them and thus make them socially meaningful. There are three cultural dimensions of urban scenes that can be used to describe them: legitimacy, theatricality and authenticity.

The dimension of legitimacy describes values and motives that guide and legitimise cultural consumption practices. It determines the right and desirable lifestyles, determines which ways of conduct are right and which are wrong, determines the patterns of social consumption and shapes the beliefs and intentions of the actors. Actors in scenes take pleasure in a shared sense of being “normal”, while rejecting those who do not conform to the scene-specific norms of consumption. The pleasure and the will to do what one believes to be right, signify precisely “legitimacy”. The following values may be the source of legitimacy of cultural consumption practices: tradition, charisma, self-expression, egalitarianism or utilitarianism.

The tradition dimension refers to those consumption practices whose undertaking is justified by tradition or custom and which express respect for history, heritage, or traditional and historical role models such as heroes and historical figures. An example of a traditional activity might be attending mass at church. Similarly, wedding dress salons provide goods that allow wedding traditions to be cultivated. Museums, historical buildings, ancient architecture or antique shops also represent the valuing of the past and tradition.

Charisma, on the other hand, refers to authorities, exceptional personalities, famous individuals and thus the value of being around them or consuming the goods they create. Specific consumption practices are based on a kind of “cult” of the individual: an outstanding artist, a TV star, a recognisable chef or an acclaimed journalist. What is valued is that which is signed by these individuals. An example would be author restaurants, where one comes not just to eat, but to be in a place with the reputation that the name of a great chef brings. Another kind of example of consumption practices legitimised by charisma are the boutiques of recognised and established designers. The customers of these boutiques certainly do not come there just to get dressed, as they could do so by spending much smaller sums of money, but also (and perhaps above all) to purchase a piece of the aura of an exceptional individual, which increases the value of the purchased product.

Utilitarianism denotes the legitimacy of consumption practices that appeals to principles of productivity, efficiency and utility and is based on a rational calculation of benefits and losses. Consumption practices are considered legitimate if the outcome of this calculation is beneficial, whereby the basis for assessing the benefits of a practice is the effect itself, never the experience as such. The utilitarian individual will therefore choose a fast-food outlet rather than an authentic restaurant, because what is important is to eat in an efficient way, both in terms of saving time and money, and not to pay for the added value of the fame of the chef who prepared the meal.

Self-expression is based on the belief in everyone’s right to express themselves and enjoy unique experiences. It attributes a unique meaning to creativity, whether one’s own or that of others. If we were to evoke again the example of a restaurant, it would be one offering “creative” or “experimental” cuisine, where amateurs of creative food came to savour the refined flavours, textures and forms of the dishes and contemplate them like works of art. Other examples of expressions are avant-garde museums, jazz clubs or drawing lessons. They all express the values of creation and expression that these consumption practices legitimise.

Finally, egalitarianism expresses belief that all human beings are treated equally, regardless of their background, the pursuit of self-interest is seen as corrupting, and creative expression is a dangerous luxury. In the contemporary culture of post-industrial societies, egalitarian legitimacy is based on ideals of social equality, regardless of social origin, gender, race or age, universal justice, seeing others always as an end, never as a means of action, and always as members of an all-human community. Consumption practices legitimised by the values of egalitarianism value open access and equality of experience. Examples of venues offering such practices include public libraries, parks, human rights organisations, food banks or open readings. The opposite of these values are facilities that limit access to the goods and services they offer and create a distance between the individuals who consume these goods and services and those who do not have access to them, such as private golf clubs or art collectors’ shops, which are only accessible to the rich and are oriented towards distinction and hierarchy-building.

Whatever the sources of their legitimacy, cultural practices take the form of certain roles played by the inhabitants in front of other participants of the scene. This play creates a dimension of theatricality, the importance of which in social life was first pointed out by Goffman (1959) and Fried (1980). Scenes provide opportunities to see and be seen, thus shaping the behaviour and modes of conduct of their members. Participants may derive social pleasure from acting out their role or watching others do so. This pleasure of performing determines how we show ourselves to others and how we perceive the image of others. There are five dimensions of theatricality, that is, roles and the ways in which individuals play them when undertaking specific practices of consumption. These are transgression, exhibitionism, neighbourliness, glamour and formalism.

Formalism describes those consumption practices whose essential element is the observance of strict rules and principles or etiquette and codes of conduct. Examples of such practices include attending the premiere of an opera at the National Theatre or a charity ball, which involves a series of injunctions and prohibitions relating to desirable patterns of behaviour, including dress code, as well as a visit to an office, which informal rules about the desired course of interaction are often reinforced by appropriate regulations. It is therefore both a matter of formal regulations in the form of various types of rules and regulations, and—above all—informal standards set by what we used to call “good manners” or etiquette, and which required from the participant in these practices a certain cultural refinement allowing him or her to move freely in the given scene.

Neighbourliness is the opposite of formalism and denotes the kind of theatricality that is based on close, warm, familiar and intimate direct relations and allows a sense of closeness and community to develop. Examples of venues that offer consumption practices based on such relationships can be community centres, small local bakeries, beer bars, local bars, children’s playgrounds or food markets where we always get our vegetables from the same vendor.

Transgression consists in the deliberate breaking of existing patterns of behaviour, whether defined as formalism, the norms of domestic relations or any generally accepted norms and patterns. Transgressive theatricality involves transgressing generally accepted norms, “shocking” others and feeling a sense of community with those who are also shocking, like Baudelaire’s dandies, who shocked with their commonly perceived scandalous behaviour, but were themselves never shocked by the scandalous behaviour of others. An equally important element of transgression is a kind of ostentation of opposition to binding values. Examples of transgressive consumption practices can be squats, punk concerts, tattoo and piercing parlours, cafés with revolutionary magazines, strip clubs, prostitution or drug consumption.

Exhibitionism describes such practices of consumption, the essence of which is the pleasure of being watched and watching others. “Showing up” and “being admired” are key aspects of these practices. The weightlifters at Venice Beach in California are not doing it to get in shape, but to show off their trained and oiled-up muscles to others. Some clubs and discos are not just for the purpose of unleashing layers of self-expression through dancing, but also to relish the stares of others and reciprocate them. Examples of exhibitionist theatricality can also be found in nightclubs, bars organising wet t-shirt competitions, glazed fitness clubs, gay parades or cosmetic surgery surgeries. The aim of all these practices (whether conscious or not, overt or covert, main or side) is to expose oneself and one’s body to the view of other people and to collect admiration from them.

Glamour, that is close to exhibitionism, is a type of theatricality that involves playing the role of a trendsetter, imposing trends on others and being seen as “fashionable”, “stylish” and worthy of imitation. Chicness is a reminder that life is theatre and costume plays a decisive role in it. The essence of glamour is “glitz”, which is perfectly illustrated by celebrities walking the red carpet in the glare of the spotlight at a film festival. Examples of glamour consumption practices include designer boutiques, fashionable cafés, jewellery studios or furriers, as well as beauty salons, design schools, fashion shows, clubs with VIP rooms, private trainers, etc.

Every practice, including consumption, is at the same time an expression of a certain identity and leads to the self-realisation of the individual. Those aspects of consumption that allow acting actors to enjoy the pleasure of “being themselves” are referred to as authenticity. Individuals feel the need to be authentic and, at the same time, reject behaviour that lacks authenticity. The dimension of authenticity makes it possible to determine the extent to which different scenes reinforce a sense of rootedness and identification, confirming or transforming the individual identity of the members. An actor acting on a given scene may construct his or her identity on the basis of values of localism, ethnicity, corporatism, statehood or rationalism.

Localism expresses the idea of ‘home’, being brought up in a particular locality defines identity regardless of the direction in which it later develops. Regardless of who we currently are and what we do, we cannot pretend to come from somewhere other than where we actually are. However, it is not necessary to identify with a particular localness to value the idea of it as such. The local authenticity of consumption practices is based on a preference for what is local (or regional), what grows out of local and regional traditions and culture, the nature of which is marked by this localness, local or regional origin, and which brings a sense of being “at home”. In other words, the authenticity of certain consumption practices is brought about by their local origin. Examples of such practices include museums dedicated to the history and culture of a particular city or region, restaurants offering local cuisine, markets selling food from local farmers, shops selling T-shirts with “local” prints, and “local” bars frequented by a local clientele.

Ethnicity, like locality, shapes our identity at a pre-reflective level—it is imposed on us at birth and shapes our identity before we become aware of it. Consumption practices of ethnic authenticity are based on the belief that ethnicity is at the core of who we are, and that ethnicity gives these practices authenticity. Patients are more likely to trust acupuncture practitioners if they are Chinese. Sushi restaurants served by Japanese are more likely to be visited. As with localism, one does not have to belong to a particular ethnic group to recognise the value of ethnic cultures and traditions and to value ethnically based authenticity in consumption practices. Examples of facilities offering goods and services characterised by ethnic authenticity could be sushi bars, Indian shops, feng shui services, restaurants offering ethnic cuisine (e.g. Asian cuisine).

Corporate authenticity, on the other hand, is based on global standardisation and universalisation, impersonal relationships, the principle of profit maximisation and efficient procedures. While individuals seeking ethnic authenticity will be attracted to a sushi bar run by Japanese people, those brought up with corporate culture will be attracted to a restaurant whose originality is confirmed by its affiliation to a branded chain, such as Pizza Hut or MacDonalds, Their standardised offer will not surprise us even when we travel to distant continents: we always know what we are going to get, we know that it will always be the same, that the service will not disappoint us, that we will be served quickly and efficiently according to objective standards, that we will not have to chat with the waiters. Other examples of venues characterised by this type of authenticity are the corporations themselves, business services, chain cafés and restaurants, chain shops and global brands such as iSpot or Starbucks.

Rational authenticity is based on the belief that individual identity is formed through the autonomous decisions of individuals who decide for themselves who they want to be. Regardless of ethnicity or upbringing, human beings are first and foremost thinking beings and this is a fundamental characteristic of them, ahead of any formative experience. Rational authenticity values reason and rational cognition above all else and expresses the conviction that life should be guided by reason and not by spiritual raptures. Consumption practices based on rational authenticity will emphasise the power of reason in shaping the world and self-reflective choices. Examples of such practices include research institutes, universities, academic bookshops, science museums, community organisations and social movements.

Statehood undoubtedly plays a fundamental role in modern societies in shaping the identity of individuals. Regardless of ascribed characteristics and achieved statuses, individuals are citizens, which makes them equal members of the state community, able to co-determine its fate. Consumption practices of state authenticity are based on the values of civic participation, patriotism and obedience to state authority. To be authentic is to be proud of one’s state and citizenship and to place one’s status as a citizen above other identifications. Examples of amenities fostering state authenticity can be all kinds of public offices and institutions, administrative bodies, the military and the police, embassies and consulates, but also state museums, flag shops, political parties and patriotic organisations.

Each scene is characterised by a different set of amenities, a different combination of the subdimensions of legitimacy, theatricality and authenticity and attracts different categories of agents, constituting a space for specific values and attitudes. We can distinguish multiple types of cultural scenes, such as Disney Heaven, LaLa Land, Renoir’s Loge, Baudelaire’s River Styx or Brook’s Bobos, Cool Cosmopolitanism and many others. The Disney Heaven scene, aimed at middle-class families with children, is characterised by high neighbourliness and low transgression and exhibitionism. The combination of traditionalism and neighbourliness could characterise the communitarian scene, which is a place where conventional lifestyles are practised, and tradition-based values and identities prevail. Brook’s Bobos, as a neo-Bohemian scene would in turn be characterised by a combination of transgression and self-expression with traditionalism, neighbourliness and localism (Lloyd, 2002; Silver et al., 2010). Baudelaire’s River Styx unconventional scene, on the other hand, would be a manifestation—as the name suggests—of unconventional lifestyles in which transgression and exhibitionism would be of particular value. Another kind of unconventional scene could be the LaLa Land scene. In this type of scene, there is a high intensity of amenities related to distinction, artistic creation on the one hand and entertainment on the other. The list is not exhaustive and, based on the collected data, one can generate the most diverse types of scenes, as long as the listed values (sub-dimensions) form a logical pattern.

The scene is thus a socially and culturally meaningful space, it is a place (Tuan, 1974) whose symbolic meanings are constructed by practices of cultural consumption. By providing particular opportunities for meaningful practices of cultural consumption, scenes attract individuals who share similar tastes and cultural values, allowing them to practice their lifestyles and identities and thus community. Different individuals, with different identities, are driven by different motives and play different roles, so they will be attracted by different scenes. Therefore, scenes may be considered spatial platforms for the integration of various communities. In scenes imagined communities based on shared aesthetic tastes and cultural identities like neo-tribes, lifestyle or taste communities or new social movements can take on real form through the spatial embedding of cultural practices that (re)produce these communities. In this way, a concept of the scene provides a link between territory, networks and culture and between locality and imagined communality. However, claiming that scene is a space of/for lifestyle communities is a shortcut. It needs to be explained how and why these imagined communities based on common cultural consciousness come into being in a given urban space and how cultural dimensions of space shape the ways in which they are practised. The theory of scenes does not provide detailed theoretical accounts on practices and in fact, in the empirical research practices of cultural consumption are operationalised as and reduced to amenities (cf. Klekotko, 2019a, 2021; Silver & Clark, 2016). All we know is that practices that create scenes (and thus communities) are widely comprehended practices of cultural consumption. We also know that these practices are socially meaningful, that is, possess meanings that make them attractive or unattractive to different actors and define the nature of legitimacy, theatricality and authenticity of practices in which these actors involve or do not involve. All these propositions, in general terms, remain coherent with and may be tailored to the conceptual framework of the social practice theory, which I am to present next. I believe that by providing solid ontology, the social practice theory may contribute to a better understanding of scenes as platforms for the development of urban communities and that combining the theory of scenes with social practice theory is a promising direction in conceptualising community processes in contemporary cities.

Theory of Social Practice

The theory of social practices (TSP) is a theoretical perspective that breaks through the traditional oppositions of social theory and as such is particularly helpful in addressing the limitations of contemporary community studies. First of all, the TPS liberates itself from the determinism of social structures and systems, as well as from individualism, which sees individual actions as the substrate of social phenomena. Therefore, the TSP transcends the structure-agency opposition in explaining the social (Nicolini, 2012; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 2001, 2002; Shove, 2010; Shove et al., 2012). It also overcomes other dualisms of social theory, like social-material, cultural-material, body-mind, and theory-action. As noticed by Nicolini (2012: 3–4), “the enhanced explanatory power of the practice approach, and its capacity to dissolve (rather than resolve) such enduring dualisms, stems from the fact that adopting such a theoretical stance produces a radical shift in our understanding of social”.

Andreas Reckwitz (2002) describes the social practice theory as a particular type of cultural theory of action. In contrast to the purpose-oriented theory of action of homo economicus tradition in social theory for which social order is a product of the combination of individual subjective interests as well as to norm-oriented theory of action of homo sociologicus tradition for which social order is guaranteed by a normative consensus, the cultural theories of actions are oriented towards symbolic structures of meaning: they explain and understand actions by “reconstructing the symbolic structures of knowledge which enable and constrain agents to interpret the world according to certain forms, and to behave in corresponding ways” (Reckwitz, 2002: 245–246). As such, social order is then “embedded in collective cognitive and symbolic structures, in a ‘shared knowledge’ which enables a socially shared way of ascribing meaning to the world” (ibid.: 246). Focusing on shared, collective symbolic structures of knowledge allows to link individual actions with social order and as such overcome traditional gaps in social theory. Social practice theory, however, differs from other cultural theories in situating the “social”: the place for social in theories of social practice is not in a human mind or mental structures (as in cultural mentalism of Levi-Strauss, Saussure, Husserl or Schutz), not in discourses (as in culturalist textualism of Geertz, Foucault or Luhmann) and not in interactions (as in culturalist intersubjectivism of Habermas), but in practices.

Therefore, for the TSP, practices become the basic building blocks of the social world and thus the object of sociological inquiry. Society appears as a field of practices. All social phenomena take place within and are aspects or components of this field (Schatzki, 1996: 11, Schatzki, 2011: 6, 2016: 28–29, 2018: 153). Social practices are, in the most general terms, arrays of human activities, whereas a field of practices is a nexus of interconnected human practices. Social ordering occurs within this field, through the interplay between constitutive elements of practices and their arrangements. Practices form blocks of interconnected elements and cannot be reduced to any of its building elements. According to Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012), practices are sets of materials, competences and meanings, Warde (2005) lists understandings, procedures and engagements, while Reckwitz proposes to analyse practices as “routinized type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one other: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge” (Reckwitz, 2002). Although various authors of the TPS propose different catalogues of elements of practices, there are several basic agreements regarding fundamental components that organise practice, determining the “routinized way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood” (Reckwitz, 2002: 250).

A key concept of the TPS is the notion of embodied cognitive capacities: know-how, practical skills, practical understandings, tacit knowledge and dispositions. All TPS theorists agree that human action depends on practical skills and understandings and that the maintenance of practices and therefore the persistence and change of social life requires the effective instilling of practical knowledge. The notion of embodiment means that “the forms of human action are intertwined with the character of the human body” (Schatzki, 2001: 11). Both actions and bodies are “constituted” within practices. The human body connects the individual to the social: in the body, mind meets action and individual meets social (Reckwitz, 2012). Because practical understanding is embodied, it is stretched between two poles: the body on the one hand and the social world on the other. Although representatives of TPS argue about the causality of practical knowledge, they usually remain united towards the view that it exists only in an embodied form in the individual. The individual possesses practical knowledge, however, only as a participant in social practices. Practical knowledge is thus a set of bodily skills that are the result of participation in practices and make that participation possible.

Some TSP theorists, like Schatzki (1996, 2002, 2010, 2015, 2016), argue that apart from practical knowledge, explicit rules should also be included in the analytical framework. This is a troublesome issue, as TSP in principle opposes the view that individuals’ behaviour is guided by explicit rules and does not accept that the concept of practical reasoning is used to defend the thesis of the ubiquity of rules, which can be “deduced” from observations of behaviour based on it. It is believed that practical understanding cannot be verbalised and described by verbally formulated principles. Neither the researchers observing the actions nor the acting actors themselves are able to do so. This position does not mean, however, that the existence of explicit rules in human action is completely denied. TSP merely draws attention to two things: (1) the primacy of understanding and practical skills—these are ubiquitous in the action of individuals, and the ability to formulate principles of action is based on the ability to use and understand them; (2) the commonality of these skills and understandings—they are the same in different individuals (Schatzki, 2001).

Most of the accounts of the TSP share the standpoint on the role of telic and affective dimensions as constitutive and indispensable elements of practice, claiming that motives, goals and emotions should also be taken into account. The TSP argues that “Practices are always oriented and organised around a telic dimension” (Nicolini, 2012: 21) and “Every social practice (…) implies a use of senses and their perceptive qualities (…) typically accompanied by certain emotions” (Reckwitz, 2012: 249). Both telos and affectivity are building elements of practice that are independent of individual agents. As noticed by Nicolini (2012: 21), “an object and telos are carried by the practice, not by individuals. Individuals may have their personal motives but once they join a practice they also tune into the object, telos and sense that is associated with the practice. Social practices thus populate our world with sense and meaning so that a practice unfolds on a moment-by-moment basis around something we care about and which interests us”. The same is true in case of emotions: “Affects are always embedded in practices which are, in turn, embedded in tacit schemes of interpretation. (…) Affects/emotions are neither an inner possession of individuals nor are they mere outward signs, “expressive” gestures made in public. They are bodily reactions and they are enabled/restricted by interpretative schemes at the same time” (Reckwitz, 2012: 251). In other words, when an individual undertakes a given practice, embrace the goals and affects ascribed to it.

The TPS addresses also the problem of “materiality” or “material” arrangements and their participation in practices, emphasising the constitutive role of things and materials in everyday life. Practices as arrays of human action are assumed to be materially mediated: they are enacted through things and materials: tools, technologies, and other physical objects and artefacts people use to carry out practices. Thus, “practices are intrinsically connected to and interwoven with objects” (Schatzki, 2002: 106). Shove (2016: 156) indicates three kinds of things and materials that play different roles in practice: infrastructures denotes things that are necessary for the conduct of a practice, but are not engaged with directly, devices refer to things that are directly mobilised and actively manipulated and resources understood as “things which are used up or radically transformed in the course of practice”. Since materials interact with other elements of configuration of practice which mutually shape each other, the material environment in which social practices occur can influence how they are performed, and also how they change over time (cf. Shove, 2016; Shove et al., 2012). It can also constrain or enable certain practices. Therefore, materiality is an essential aspect of social practices, as it helps to understand how people interact with their physical surroundings and how these interactions shape practices, and thus social life. As Schatzki put it “understanding specific practices always involves apprehending material configurations” (Schatzki et al., 2001: 3).

Practice is realised through performances. The TPS proposes for analytical purposes to distinguish between two understandings of practice: as an entity, and as performance. Practice-as-entity is understood as a pattern of configuration of constitutive elements of a practice, while practice-as-performance is an enactment of the practice-as-entity in time and space, a moment of configuration (Shove et al., 2012) which actualizes and sustains practice-as-entity (Schatzki, 1996: 90). Practices are therefore “enduring entities reproduced through recurrent performance” (Shove et al., 2012: 8). Practice-as-entity exists insofar as it is reproduced in practice-as-performances. As explained by Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012: 7): “It is through performance, thorough immediacy of doing, that the ‘pattern’ provided by the practice-as-entity is filled out and reproduced. It is only through successive moments of performance that the interdependencies between elements which constitute the practice as entity are sustained over time. (…) the [practice-as-entity] only exists and endures because of countless recurrent enactments, each reproducing the interdependencies of which the practice is comprised” (Shove 2012: 7). Modifications in the performances, introducing changes in the configuration of elements, thus lead to a transformation of practice-as-entity, thus constituting a potential for social change. Shove and her team emphasise that “Stability and routinization are not end points of a linear process of normalization. Rather, they should be understood as ongoing accomplishments in which similar elements are repeatedly linked together in similar ways” (ibid.: 24).

The TSP develops a particular standpoint on the status of individuals. Understandings, know-how, meanings, tasks, purposes, etc. are elements and/or features of practices, not attributes of the individuals. In TSP individual is a product of practices. Individual traits are rooted in social practices—people become people as they are through participation in practices, just as the forms of individual actions depend on the practices in which these individuals participate. People’s status as actors and subjects is thus derived from practices. As Reckwitz (2002: 256) put it: “In practice theory, agents are body/minds who ‘carry’ and ‘carry out’ social practices. Thus, the social world is first and foremost populated by diverse social practices which are carried by agents. Agents, so to speak, ‘consist in’ the performance of practice (…). As carriers of a practice, they are neither autonomous not the judgmental dopes who conform to norms: They understand the world and themselves, and use know-how and motivational knowledge, according to the particular practice”. The human mind is also shaped through participation in practices—“the contents and properties that constitute and define the mind depend causally and ontologically on participation in social practices” (Schatzki, 2001: 20). Since in TSP social practices are bodily and mental routines, “mental activities do not appear as individual, but as socially routinized; the ‘individual’ consists in the unique crossing of different mental and bodily routines ‘in’ one mind/body and in the interpretative treatment of this constellation of ‘crossing’” (Reckwitz, 2002: 257). Practices thus replace the notion of mind, being the only source and carrier of meanings, language, norms and values. Norms, values, meanings and language are generated, sustained and transformed by practices, not by individuals themselves. Individuals are incorporated into the typical ways of doing things in existing practices, and it is through them that norms, values, meanings and language are maintained or are changed and transformed (Schatzki, 2001).

The greatest contribution to the development of TSP as outlined above is due to the philosophical work of Theodor Schatzki. This author develops his ontology of the social comprehended as nexus of interconnected practices in the most complete and remarkably consistent way (Schatzki, 1996, 2002), arguing that “social life, that is human coexistence, inherently transpires as part of nexuses of practices and material arrangements” (2010: 129) and that all social phenomena “are either aspects of, constellations of, or rooted in nexuses of practices” (2018: 153). In my approach to urban communities, which I will present in the following section, I mainly use the model of practice proposed by this author. Schatzki (1996, 2002) defines social practices as embodied, materially mediated arrays of human activities, organized around a common practical understanding. Practices are nexuses of human activity, temporally evolving, open-ended sets of doings and sayings organised, linked and driven by (1) practical understandings, (2) explicit rules and principles, (3) teleoaffective structures, and (4) general understandings (Schatzki, 2002: 87, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016). Practical understanding is the bodily ability to perform a practice, for example, the ability to ride a bicycle. The concept refers to the way people engage in practices by using bodily know-how and implicit knowledge to make sense of and enact these practices in a meaningful way (Schatzki, 2007, 2009). It denotes the ability to seamlessly navigate the various elements involved in a practice, as well as to extend and modify practices over time through innovation and adaptation. Explicit rules determine the expected and desired way to perform an activity—for example, how a bicycle should be ridden, where it should be ridden, and where it should be parked. They form instructions to what and how to do. Unlike practical understanding, explicit rules lend themselves to verbalisation, so we are able to articulate them verbally as principles of proceeding. Teleoaffective structures refer to the complex of bodily and mental capacities that enable individuals to carry out practices with purpose and emotion. These structures combine two key elements: teleology, which refers to the overarching goal or purpose of a practice, and affectivity, which encompasses the emotional investments and meaning-making processes that are involved in practice. Teleoaffective structures include the “goals, plans, tasks, intentions, beliefs, emotions and moods” (Schatzki, 1997: 89) of actors that motivate them to undertake a given activity—they determine why I choose a bicycle as a mean of transport and for what purpose I use it. General understanding expresses collective beliefs about a given activity and the conditions under which it occurs, for example, what people think and know about bicycles and cycling. It refers to the shared knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions that exist within a particular social group or community, including convictions on what is right and appropriate. These general understandings are often taken for granted, but they provide the basis for the way people within that group engage in various practices. General understandings can include language, cultural norms, values, and beliefs about the world, all of which shape how people perceive and act in the world. Practice, therefore, includes the observable physical behaviour of an individual and their understanding of the situation, their knowledge of “how” a given situation or action should take place, as well as their desires and motivations.

Practices always take place in some time and some space and are carried out with the help of certain objects, in the presence or with the participation of other people. Other people, things, as well as artefacts and organisms used or participating in practices make up the “arrangements” of practices and together with practices form a kind of inseparable “bundles”—“practice-arrangements bundles” (Schatzki, 2002). These “bundles of practices and arrangements provide the material out of which social phenomena, large and small, consist” (Schatzki, 2011: 6). The term “bundle” highlights the inseparable and interconnected nature of practices and arrangements. Practices and arrangements are intertwined and mutually constituted, with each shaping and influencing the other (Schatzki, 2016: 32). The practice-arrangement bundle emphasises that practices are not independent of the material and social contexts in which they occur. They are dynamically shaped and sustained through the arrangements that support them (ibid.).

Similarly, space, by providing arrangements, is an intrinsic attribute of practice and as such (along with other elements) determines its essence. Schatzki (2009) builds his concept of spatiality on Heidegger differentiation between objective and relational understating of space. Space understood objectively refers to measurable physical dimensions and denotes geographic location, a real existing area, independent of human existence, which we can render on a map and mark individual locations on it. In contrast, space understood relationally is shaped by the specific activities it encompasses and is the result of the reciprocal relationship between the actor and the external world, determining its relevance to and involvement in human activities. Schatzki fosters relational comprehension of space: in his understanding, space is always a place to carry out particular activities and is relative to the particular practice-arrangement bundle: it makes these activities possible and meaningful (Schatzki, 1991, 2009). According to Schatzki, space is not simply a backdrop for social practices but is instead an integral part of them. He argues that spaces are created through the practices that take place within them, and they are constantly being reconfigured as these practices change. Schatzki’s approach emphasises importance of examining the interplay between materiality, embodiment, and meaning-making in shaping spatial arrangements. He suggests that spaces are not static but are constantly being constructed, transformed, and contested through ongoing practices. Space is linked to time, which is also comprehended relationally, as a moment for carrying out a particular practice. Similarly to space, time is a constitutive element that shapes and is shaped by social practices. Schatzki (2009) proposes the term “timespace” to denote inseparable and interconnected nature of time and space which are intricately intertwined and mutually constitutive. Different practices are assigned different timespaces or different timespaces encompasses different practices. I will show next how these timespaces may be conceptualised and operationalised as scenes and thus linked to practices of cultural consumption, which—by adding aesthetic and affective dimension to the relational comprehension of space—help to better conceptualise urban community as spatially embedded cultural practices.

Urban Scene as a Nexus of Community Practices

The dimensions of scenes proposed by scene theory correspond to the elements of the organisation of practices described in TSP, defining what, how, why and for what purpose should or should not be done in a given place. They define and describe the space of the city by means of the practices of cultural consumption undertaken in that space (encompassing in its meaning de facto all practices), thus emphasising—albeit unintentionally—the inseparability of practices and spaces, as packages of practices and their material arrangements. I thus propose to conceptualise the space of practices as a scene, as the notion of a scene makes it perfectly possible to capture the spatiality and relational nature of practices, or “bundles of practices and their arrangements”. The two presented theories bring important insights into our understanding of community life in cities. On the one hand, the TSP allows to overcome the agency–structure divide. On the other hand, the theory of scenes is a perfect link between place, networks and culture or (new) locality and (new) communality that allows to avoid both ecological determinism and cultural reductionism of other approaches to community. Combined, the two theories double their descriptive and explanatory potential: the TSP benefits from the theory of scenes in conceptualization and operationalisation of the cultural dimensions of urban space as made of socially meaningful practices of cultural consumption and the theory of scenes gains from the TSP solid ontology. In order to make theory of scenes and TSP work together for a better understanding of communal phenomena in urban settings, the building elements of scene need to be praxeologised, namely, they require further theoretical conceptualisation within the framework offered by the TSP. I believe that the TSP provides vocabulary as well as some empirical evidence that help to shed new light to our understanding of urban scenes as dynamic arrangements of space, people, practices and values/meanings and their role for community practices. My approach is not orthodox. I treat the TPS vocabulary and its grammar as a sensitising heuristic device (cf. Reckwitz, 2002: 257) which is to help me to reach to the phenomena of urban communality that has not been reached by the traditional approaches (cf. Nicolini, 2012, 2017). In doing so, I make use of different concepts and approaches developed within the TPS, constructing a kind of collage of ideas, thoughts, insights and findings of different authors. Although I build my approach on the classical philosophical works of Schatzki, I also include cultural perspective of Reckwitz, performative approach of Nicolini, praxeological insights about consumption of Warde and developments on materiality and change of Shove. In other words, my point of departure in conceptualising community as nexus of practices is the definition provided by Schatzki, however, I will fill it with insights from other authors.

I propose to conceptualize urban community as a nexus of shared cultural and aesthetic practices and their spatial arrangements. In doing so, I emphasise two dimensions of such comprehended community: locality and communality or territory (spatiality) and culture. Urban communities (community practices) emerge through daily cultural and aesthetic practices, and these are, in turn, defined by the cultural meanings of territory in which these practices take place, shaping the cultural meanings of territory (spatial arrangements). I conceptualize spatial arrangements as a scene. The scene is built up of embodied and materially mediated practices of cultural consumption carried by agents oriented towards particular teleoaffectives. As a relationally comprehended space, scene is a place for definite practices. The same objective space may be different scenes depending on the time of day, a week or even a year, thus may be a relational space for different practices thus providing opportunities for the development of different community practices. As a product of practices scene has performative, processual and dynamic character (Nicolini, 2012; Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996, 2002; Shove et al., 2012; Silver & Clark, 2016). If practices are not performed, scenes disappear. Their performative dimension is decisive here. Scene must be performed in order to exist, if there are no agents performing the practice, the scene resembles a stage abandoned by the actors. As co-constituted by meanings and teleoafectives prescribed by practices of cultural consumption, the scene has a strong aesthetic and affective dimension (Reckwitz, 2007, 2012; Silver & Clark, 2016) that contributes to the development of individual and collective cultural identity and forms a foundation for a sense of belonging and community. Therefore, I propose a praxeological, relational and cultural approach to urban community. Scenes are created by aesthetic practices of cultural consumption which are a medium for the development of individual and collective identities which are in turn foundation for the development of the lifestyle communities. Therefore, scenes are sites for doing community (Fig. 2.1).

Fig. 2.1
A representation of territory meanings to practices and practices meanings to territory, with both points pointing to community.

The interplay of culture and territory in community practices

Full size image

“Doing community”, similarly to “doing class” or “doing gender” is a nexus of practices that combine and coordinate different practices, allowing them to work together as a larger whole and more complex ways of life (Schatzki, 1996). Therefore, we cannot study “doing community” directly—we can only study them through other practices of a more “concrete”, limited and focused nature. I propose to call such kinds of practices emerging from the others metapractices. Metapractices are nexuses of practices and do not need to be realised (and often are not) by the actors, but they are firmly rooted in and reveal themselves in the rules and teleoafectives of doing any other practice with clearly focused purposes. For example, class is not ‘done’ directly, but through all sorts of everyday practices undertaken by the individual: how they eat, how they communicate, what sports they play, what films they choose at the cinema. In other words, class (meta)practices manifest themselves in the “modalities” of social practices such as rules or teleoafectives of eating practices, communication practices or leisure practices. They determine how these particular practices are performed and how they are supposed to run properly. The same—although in minor scope—is true of community. Only a small proportion of community practices are aimed explicitly at “doing community”. However, community is continually “done” through everyday practices, and communality often underlies the rules as well as teleoaffective structures of these practices. To give an example: if I am an environmentalist and thus belong to an ecological community, I am “practicing” ecology (and my identity) through my shopping choices, waste segregation, electricity saving, vegetarianism, among others.

In delimitating practices that make up community as nexus of practices the theory of scenes would direct attention towards practices of cultural consumption. As it has been said before, scenes may be comprehended as spatial expressions of lifestyle communities which are based on shared practices of cultural consumption. In the postmodern era, individuals are still faced with the task of constructing their own identity (Giddens, 1991), and it is believed that symbolic meanings of consumption provide them with the building blocks for this (cf. Elliott & Wattanasuwan, 1998; Miles, 1996; Shields, 1992). By providing opportunities for cultural consumption, scenes allow participating individuals to develop their lifestyles, realise their values and build their individual and collective identities which are in turn foundation for development of communities. In this respect, scenes can be regarded as the spatial expression of cultural communities (lifestyle communities). It is thus essential to understand the nature and the role of consumption as a driving force of communal practices. In his praxeological research on consumption, Alan Warde (2004, 2005) provides a definition of consumption as “a process whereby agents engage in appropriation and appreciation, whether for utilitarian, expressive or contemplative purposes, of goods, services, performances, information or ambience, whether purchased or not, over which the agent has some degree of discretion” (Warde, 2005: 137). Thus, the approach of Warde, like the theory of scenes, breaks free from the economist conception of consumption as market exchange and allows for a shift of attention to its symbolic significance for social life in all its dimensions. As Warde rightly points out, consumption understood in this way accompanies almost all practices, as almost every practice requires an appropriation and appreciation of goods (both tangible and intangible) in order to be competently enacted. As Warde puts it: “being a competent practitioner requires appropriate consumption of goods and services. To practice, so to speak, requires that competent practitioners will avail themselves of the requisite services, possess and command the capability to manipulate appropriate tools and devote a suitable level of attention to the conduct of the practice” (ibid.: 145). Therefore, “consumption is not itself a practice, but is, rather, a moment in almost every practice” (ibid.: 137). Consumption therefore comes from engagement in specific practices, and it is the practices that determine what should be consumed and how it should be consumed in order for the practice to be properly performed: “Items appropriated and the manner of their deployment are governed by the conventions of the practice”, says Warde (ibid.: 137). In other words, practices prescribe consumption and patterns of consumption can be “explained and accounted for partly by volume of practices and commitment to practices” (2005: 144). These bring important consequences for our thinking of consumption-based mechanisms of lifestyle creation: personal lifestyles become the outcomes of multiple engagements in practices that involve consumption. As Warde puts it: “If the individual is merely the intersection point of many practices, and practices are the bedrock of consumption, then (…) new explanations of contemporary identities and the role of consumption in identity formation suggest themselves” (2005: 144). Consumption is an indispensable condition for pursuing practices that make up individual careers and trajectories of practice and define meanings and identities of practitioners. Being ecological means engaging in practices that entail different consumption patterns than, for example, being glamorous. However, being ecological is the result of a commitment to practising ecology, not the other way around—the individual, as we know from the TSP, is a product of practices and practices presuppose and prescribe identities. Thus, individual identities are not mental creations, but a result of involvement in a particular network of practices and the meanings the individuals receive through their position in the organisation of a particular practice and “career of practices”. Individuals with different competences, understandings and engagements are recruited into different practices and adopt meanings ascribed to them. Through the availability of specific practices and opportunities for their enactment, the individuals can build their identities as “crossings”, intersection points, trajectories and carriers of these practices.

My claim is that urban scenes, by providing opportunities for cultural consumption, create socio-cultural opportunity structures for the development of specific community practices, at the same time becoming a platform and tool for community-forming processes in the city. It is through their presence in the city that individuals can establish ties with other residents and community practices can evolve. I borrow the concept of the socio-cultural opportunity structure from Tarrow’s concept of political opportunity structure which he developed in the field of the theory of social movements in order to explain the processes of socio-political mobilisation. For Tarrow, political opportunity structures are particular arrangements of available resources, institutional settings, and past experience that shape the potential for social mobilisation. Although the word “structure” might be misleading here, as scene is not a structure in the traditional sense, the configurations of practice-arrangement bundles that build scene and thus determine opportunities for development of cultural identities and social integration resemble the very idea of the role of political opportunity structures for the political mobilisation. It is important, however, to have in mind that scenes as socio-cultural opportunity structures are more processual than structural and should be understood and analysed in praxeological manner.

Scenes are built up of embodied and materially mediated practices carried by agents oriented towards particular teleoaffectives. Scenes are kind of ready-to-use bundles of embodied capacities, rules, meanings and their arrangements in the form of objects, people, artefacts and organism. They are sites, timespaces for particular practices that enable individuals to perform and enact community. As such, they form socio-cultural opportunity structures for community practices. In my understanding, socio-cultural opportunity structures (1) determine the possibilities for the development of specific community identities, (2) enable social contact and frame the interactions between participants in the scene, leading to (3) the emergence of community self-awareness and—under certain conditions—(4) community mobilisation. In other words, the socio-cultural opportunity structures of urban scenes provide individuals with four basic community-forming resources: identity, interaction, awareness and mobilisation.

Scene allows individuals to practice their identity (which might be understood as a particular career of practices or a significant crossing of multiple practices in which individual engages) in a threefold sense. Firstly, the scene provides resources for particular practice that makes up the individual trajectory defining the individuality of the practitioner to be performed. As already discussed, individual identity is not a mental creation but the result of practices. It has to be practised in order to exist, it draws its sources from practice and performance experiences. The potential for practice to be enacted depends, in turn, at least in part, on the ready availability of its requisite elements (cf. Shove et al., 2012: 43). Scenes are timespaces offering such availability. They are equipped with arrangements providing materials (infrastructures, devices and resources [cf. Shove et al., 2012: 156]) and meanings (including aesthetic and affective dimensions) which allow practitioners to engage in various practices and thus enact and construct their identity. Secondly, individuals gain recognition, which is a condition of identity: by undertaking certain practices in scene, they gain meaning and identity. In Schatzki’s model (2002: 19), meaning is what something is and identity—who it is. Both meaning and identity are constituted within practice arrangements and are reflections of position of agent in them and thus of relations between this agent and other elements (including other agents) of the practice arrangements. According to Schatzki “Relations, positions and meanings are bound holistically together, none enjoying priority over the others” (2002: 19). Identity is a subgenus of meaning and is determined by meaning. “Meaning” refers to the shared understanding that individuals attach to entities or agents within a social practice. On the other hand, “identity” relates to the sense of self and belonging that individuals derive from participating in a social practice. It involves the ways in which individuals define themselves and are defined by others based on their engagement in specific practices. Warde pays attention to the paradox of recognition of meanings and thus identities. “As the number of practices grows and many become more varied internally, it becomes increasingly difficult to interpret those signs and symbols supposed to communicate personal identity to others (…). It is thus important to recognize the variability in the extent to which practices are shared and understood among a broad public, for preferences are often learned within a particular sphere of practice ad their justification has localized jurisdiction” (2005: 145). Scenes as spaces dedicated to see and be seen, provide opportunities for recognition as they are intelligible to practitioners and as such may be considered such “localized jurisdiction”. Thirdly, scene is an arena for learning of practice (development of competences and skills) and acquiring proficiency in performance, thereby developing individual identities and community practices. Correctly performed performance brings satisfaction to the individual, gratification both internally and externally (Warde, 2004), influencing the consolidation of identity and its better recognition by others. By practicing in scene, the practitioners train their body-minds and thus acquire and develop practical knowledge. As competence develops, the way an individual is perceived by others changes (Shove, 2012: 70). From a beginner, one becomes an expert in a particular practice. Subsequent successful performances allow the individuals to develop their careers of practices and reinforce their meanings and identities. In the process, the practice itself can transform, for example, what determines what is, for example, ecological and how ecology should be practised. As Shove notes, practices are determined by a specific combinations of elements (materials, competences and meanings) and as such they evolve as these elements change. In this way, community identities are evolving and redefining themselves. As noted by Show et al. “Experienced practitioners define career paths that other then follow. In other settings it is novices who bring new ways of doing into being. In both cases the ways in which relations between newcomers and old-hands are structured is critical for the circulation (of not) of expertise and for how careers develop” (ibid.: 72).

Scenes as timespaces for particular practices bring practitioners together so they can enter into contact and interact. According to Nicolini (2012: 173) practices are “collectively phenomena and they make participants co-exist and come together within specific projects and horizons of intelligibility”. Intelligibility refers to the way practices are understood and recognised by participants within a particular social setting (Schatzki, 2002: 33). For a practice to be intelligible, it must make sense to the agents involved. This means that they must be able to recognise the components of the practice, understand how they fit together, and see the purpose or goal of the practice. Without some level of shared understanding of what a practice entails, it is difficult for individuals to coordinate their actions with others and to know how to participate effectively and efficiently in the practice. If a practice is not intelligible, participants may struggle to understand what they are supposed to do or why they are doing it. This can lead to confusion, frustration, and inefficiency. On the other hand, when a practice is intelligible, participants can enact practice smoothly and achieve their goals more easily. The horizons of intelligibility are local and situated—they are particular to specific communities and contexts (Nicolini, 2012: 172; Schatzki, 2002: 120). Scenes are spaces of intelligibility for individuals looking to enact shared practices of cultural consumption. As composed of legibly meaningful practices they allow for smooth hanging together of agents engaged in pursuing similar meanings and identities. As a site for particular practices of consumption, scene thus attracts and selects practitioners: it attracts practitioners of a definite practice looking for a site for their performance and select them rejecting those whose competences and meanings do not fit into the configuration of practices performed in the scene. The practices shape the way individuals interact with each other, as well as with the objects and tools they use within those practices. In other words, practices determine interaction through the complex interplay of meaning, competence, and materiality, which shape how individuals engage with and contribute to a particular practice (Nicolini, 2012: 173). Aesthetic dimensions of scenes inform about prevailing standards of a given practice—they define what a “proper” way of doing and saying is and thus provide frames for interactions, building in this way a sense of ontological security among participants, thanks to which they can enjoy hanging together.

Scenes also provide opportunities for the development of collective consciousness. Cultural collective consciousness develops through practices of cultural consumption that are shared by individuals. These practices, through their embeddedness in the scene, are transformed into community practices and lead to the development of a sense of belonging, place attachment and self-awareness of community. As Matthias Kluckmann (2016: 39) aptly points out, by performing practices individuals develop a feeling of “we-ness”. This “we-ness” includes all those individuals who perform the same practices, thus characterised by “commonality”, if one were to use the words of Schatzki (2002), to which Kluckmann refers. “This ‘commonality’, according to Schatzki, occurs when the same ‘understandings, principles, goals, plans and emotions’ are expressed in different human activities (Schatzki, 2002: 147). As Kluckmann (2016: 38) writes, “every feeling of we-ness develops through participation in practice, and every practice has the potential to develop a feeling of “we-ness” among its participants”. Undertaking shared practices in scene is tantamount to erecting boundaries that separate the “us” from the “others”, and thus builds a sense of community. The fact that cultural practices are territorially embedded in scenes favours the observability of the “we-ness” and its recognition by practitioners. This recognition of a shared social identity helps to establish a sense of belonging and leads to reification of the community of practitioners through the development of collective self-consciousness. In scenes imagined communities take on a real shape, externalising itself in the bodies and actions of the participants in the scene. Although actors are only, as Reckwitz (2002) puts it, “carriers of practices”, it is only through them that practices materialise and reproduce, and participants of scenes have the chance to transfer their identifications from ideas and values to concrete situations and individuals, thus making the imagined belonging to the community real. In other words, from observing the performances of other participants on scene the real “we-ness” is born, and the community, even if so far only imagined, takes on real shapes. The scene connects the space with the cultural identity of the actors and the new locality meets the new communality.

Finally, having achieved collective self-consciousness and identity participants of scene may develop collective agency which is a precondition for collective action (Melucci, 1989, 1996). Therefore, scenes provide resources for social mobilisation and thus may lead to collective actions. Collective agency as the capacity of a group to act as a unified entity, emerges through the coordination and alignment of individual actors engaged in shared practices (cf. Schatzki, 2002). As individuals participate in the scene performing shared practices and adhering to their understandings, rules and teleoafectives, their actions become interwoven and coordinated and a collective identity and agency begin to take shape. In other words, by enacting shared practices in a scene, agents build a sense of collective identity and purpose, which can then be used to mobilize individuals towards collective action. Scenes can facilitate collective agency and mobilisation in a number of ways. By undertaking shared practices in scenes, individuals gain the opportunity to recognise themselves as part of a collective and to align their actions with the shared goals and meanings. The recognition of a shared social identity helps to establish a sense of belonging as a basis for collective action (cf. Melucci, 1989, 1996). By providing a space for individuals to express their cultural identities publicly, scenes create a sense of visibility and legitimacy for the collective and its claims. Scenes may also contribute to the development of cultural repertoire of shared symbols, rituals, narratives, and practices that are meaningful to participants and form cultural resources that are used in the mobilisation (Melucci, 1989). Scenes facilitate collective agency also by providing opportunities for interaction, networking, ongoing communication and coordination among participants. By engaging in joint activities and mutual adjustments, individuals create a collective presence that transcends their individual capacities. Scene provides space for individuals to develop and refine their goals and ideas, which can then be disseminated to a wider audience, to share experiences, knowledge, and resources which can then be used to advance collective action, build networks of support and solidarity, as well as to organise and coordinate collective action (Leach & Haunss, 2008). Finally, as sites for ongoing reproduction and transformation of shared practices, scenes help to sustain and reinforce collective identity and agency. As individuals continue to participate in the practice, they contribute to its continuity and evolution, shaping the collective agency over time.

Community practices form a kind of continuum, the two extremes of which are, on the one hand, community of practice, when people are connected only by an objective bond resulting from the similarity of individually performed practices, and on the other hand, practice of community, when people are connected by a subjective bond and develop a self-conscious community (cf. Kluckmann, 2016). We can call the former one a “community in itself” and the latter—“community for itself”. A community of practice, being a community in itself, is based on a shared belief about what and how one is allowed, what one should do, and how one should do it. People are thus united by the similarity of practices. At the same time, they create and reproduce a community of these practices, because by undertaking a practice each time, they affirm their belonging to those who do the same and at the same time put up a boundary separating them from those who do otherwise. The practice of community, on the other hand, being a community for itself, includes practices whose essence, content and purpose is community. It is therefore no longer a question of individuals undertaking the same practices—which objectively unites them—but of them practising the community directly, undertaking practices oriented towards the community, in which all the constitutive elements of the practice constitute the community, when they do something for the community, because of the community. My understanding of communities of practice is close to the concept of ‘communities of practice’, which was introduced into academic circulation by two education researchers Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (Lave & Wenger, 1991) in their work on collective learning. The authors develop the concepts of Situated Learning and Legitimate Peripheral Participation, which explains how actors acquire proficiency in practice through participation in communities of practice that is at first peripheral but that increases gradually in engagement and complexity (1991: 95). According to Wenger, communities of practice are characterised by three basic characteristics (Wenger, 1998; Wenger et al., 2002): firstly, participants in these communities share a common domain of interest and an associated set of competencies. Secondly, participants interact with each other on a more or less regular basis, as a result of which they help each other to develop competence and proficiency in practice. Thirdly, participants are united by the practice they develop together—a community of practice is a community of practitioners. The approach proposed in this work, although close to Wegner’s conception, is somewhat broader, as it goes beyond the context of learning, although it does not negate it: the community of practice here is more than a community of collective learning of practice. However, it remains consistent with Wegner’s propositions about the essence of community, namely that it is the result of practice and thus “need not be reified as such to become a community; it can enter into the experience of participants through their very engagement” (Wenger 1998: 84, after Nicollini 2012: 92). As Nicolini (2012: 93–94) puts it: “There is no need for a voluntarist notion of community, where it is understood as a self-conscious, self-proclaimed entity to sustain the connectedness bestowed by practice. On the contrary, the sense of community that has fascinated social scientists, politicians, and ideologues of all times reveals itself to be the result of specific practices. (...) Community (...) is, if anything, a form of commonality performed by the practice and not vice versa”. The practice of community can evolve from community of practice. As Nicolini (2012: 92) aptly observes, ‘practice produces sociality and network effects; it sustains stabilized regimes of saying and doing which constitute a resource for the discursive constitution of individual and collective identities’ which are in turn foundations for communities comprehended as practices of community. Between the two extremes—the community of practice on the one hand and the practice of community on the other—stretch the most diverse manifestations of community, characterised by a certain fluidity and rather conventional boundaries. I propose to delineate four main types of these manifestations, although, to reiterate, the boundaries between them are fluid and very conventional. These are identity practices, sociability practices, collaborative practices and collective action practices. These different varieties of community practices can (but need not) co-occur and overlap, and reinforce each other, leading to the development of practices with different levels of integration and self-awareness (from community of practice to practice of community).

Practices of Identity

Identity practices are practices of broadly comprehended cultural consumption through which individuals develop their lifestyles and self-identities. By pursuing a particular lifestyle and an identity, individuals manifest their belonging to a lifestyle community. Identity practices are thus de facto community practices. They require practising and social recognition, because only social recognition legitimises identity. This means that even the most individualistic identities require the presence of a community to become legitimate, and outside the community, without mutual recognition, they do not exist (cf. Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Bellah et al., 1996, 2007; Kellner, 1992). In the search for mutual identity recognition, individuals choose scenes with an appropriate audience and socio-cultural opportunity structures that provide the desired identity resources. A bar for corporate employees will not provide identity resources for the anti-globalist—on the contrary, it will undermine his identification, weakening its authenticity, while a local café with a revolutionary atmosphere, filled with anti-globalist slogans, provides such resources, which is why it is where the anti-globalist will go for lunch. Although the basic practice here is to eat lunch, the specific configuration of the elements of this practice makes it at the same time a community metapractice—a practice of anti-globalist identity.

In identity practices, individuals generally do not identify with specific communities and rarely acknowledge community affiliations. The imagined dimension of community here is limited to individual identity. The imagined self dominates—the actors realise their own individual identity. Although they may feel a bond with people similar to themselves, they do not imagine these people as members of the community. Manifesting one’s identity in front of observers, however, is in fact a message about belonging to a specific community that is objectively connected by similar configurations of practices—consisting of beliefs about the desired practices, their purposeful and affective conditions and the rules of their correct course. These specific configurations testify to belonging to a community and make it possible to distinguish the “one’s” from the “stranger’s”.

In identity practices, urban space functions as a scene in its purest form: it is a space of cultural consumption practices with specific social meanings (for example, “alternative”, “ecological”), and therefore a space where we can indulge in activities that allow us to realise our lifestyles and our identities. The artefacts, objects and organisms that make up the scene and the practices undertaken within it, just as the artefacts, objects and organisms used by the actor in a given practice, give credence to the actor’s identity. Other people on the scene are treated merely as an audience (essential to the performance) who, by observing the actor’s performance of the practice, sanction the actor’s identity, or as part of the arrangement of the practice when interacting with or merely being in the presence of certain people on scene gives the practice the desired meaning. Actors do not establish subjective bonds, but they need each other to give their identity the qualities of authenticity. Therefore, the lack of access to appropriate scenes hinders the development of identity and can be a source of frustration, uncertainty and confusion, resulting from a sense of alienation.

Practices of Sociability

The practices of sociability, although at first sight indistinguishable from identity practices (they still have identity functions), differ from the latter in a sense that they require social simultaneity and begin to be oriented towards other people. The essence of the practice of sociability is to perform a given practice simultaneously with others, in their co-presence. “Simultaneously” does not mean “together”, however: practices of sociability, like practices of identity, are undertaken individually, without the cooperation of other individuals. However, they cannot be undertaken alone in isolation, hence the requirement of simultaneity of practitioners in a given place and time. Breakfast picnics are an example of this type of practice—after all, anyone can go on a picnic at any time in any place, but the participants evidently prefer instead to come to picnics organised to picnic together with others. For the point is to do this among people and to fulfil the need for sociability—being with others. The practice is thus expanded to include “similar others”: we do not need the presence of others just for mutual recognition, but for companionship. At the same time, the goal-affective structure is modified: the goal is to do something with others, to satisfy the need for sociability. Next to recognition, it is important to have pure sociability, to spend time among others and thus experience the liminal emotions of togetherness.

The community-forming mechanism in this case is the experience of liminality (Turner, 1969). It consists in the fact that individuals experience a specific satisfaction from being with strangers who share the same practice (for example, breakfast picnics, concerts, running together). This satisfaction gives rise to an edifying sense of community “we”, a “community spirit”, a “moment of community”, which is precisely the experience of “liminality”. The experience of liminality causes that next to the imagined “I” there also appears an imagined (and at the same time real) “we”: people who co-presently, in one place and time, undertake a given practice. The “I” (individual and individualistic identity) continues to dominate, but this “I” no longer requires only recognition by others, but also their simultaneous participation in practice and identity formation. In this way an idea of community develops, based on a sense of similarity (connection to others) and positive emotions from being among people who are similar in some way (what unites them is a common practice).

The socio-cultural opportunity structure of the scene provides individuals with interactional resources—it enables social contact with strangers and defines acceptable interactions between them. It allows strangers to approach each other in the sense of security guaranteed by the nature of the scene. Strangers become “familiar” in the given practice, as the practice “tames” the relations between them and allows bonds and relationships to be established. The urban scene plays the role of a safe, “familiar” meeting place and is a necessary condition for simultaneity. It can be temporary, when it serves as a one-off meeting place (such as picnics), but it can also acquire the qualities of a socially significant “place” when the practices in a given space have a recurrent character and become fixed over time, thus giving the space a relatively permanent and socially recognisable symbolic meaning.

Practices of Collaboration

Practices of collaboration going beyond individual identity and sociability practices require participants to organise and coordinate themselves. At this stage, individuals become aware of the existence of others like them and the ties or interests that connect them. They further recognise that the realisation of their chosen lifestyle and identity based on it requires cooperation. This happens, for example, when individual beekeepers decide to organise themselves to look after their bees together, or when a group of regulars in an organic bar decides to start a vegetable garden. Individuals establish rules for cooperation and patterns of behaviour that they commit to obey, although participation in the community remains voluntary and individuals join it mostly to pursue their own interests. In other words, actors share common interests, and through an organised community they can pursue these interests and achieve their own goals.

The socio-cultural opportunity structure of scene provides individuals with consciousness resources to reify the community and to embed it spatially. The process of reification and boundary-building takes place here—“us” is being defined usually in comparison to “them”. By observing the practices carried out in a scene, individuals come to the conclusion that they share a similarity of interests with others and that they form a collective being. The symbolic meanings of the practices undertaken in a given scene constitute a kind of common cultural code, which becomes a basic resource facilitating communication, organisation and coordination. Eating at McDonald’s communicates very different meanings than similar practices at a vegan eco-bar. So if we wanted to start a vegetable garden, we would look for supporters among the regulars of the eco-bar rather than among burger lovers. Moreover, it will be easier to start such a garden if we know the regulars of the eco-bar by sight and interact with them in other social situations outside the bar, for example in the local organic shop.

Individual consciousness is transformed into collective consciousness: individuals construct a collective “we” and embed their own “I” in it. In collaborative practices, the “we” comes first to the “I”, because the “I” can only realise itself through participation in the “we”. This means that actors develop an idea of “we” and see themselves as members of a community that allows and facilitates them to realise their own interests, their “I”. Since the self is defined by participation in the community, and individual interests can only be realised in cooperation with other members of the community, an image of the community is produced which acquires value for the individual and can be the object of protection, leading to conformist behaviour and the development of community obligations. Therefore, the “I” gives way to the foregrounding of the “we”, although it continues to co-direct practices.

The scene as a space of practices now becomes a space of community, an important reference point in the identity of its members and its collective consciousness and is therefore “appropriated” by the community. Individuals feel a bond with the place and treat it as “theirs”. At the same time, the bond with the place strengthens the bonds between individuals: the place binds individuals, it is itself produced by the practices they undertake. In this way the community becomes permanently “embedded” in the scene, which results in its immobilisation. The scene thus becomes “local”, and the regularity and repetition of practices and actors creates a sense of “locality”. Individuals practising organic food integrate around a common garden, which at the same time becomes “their” place—a community of “we” is created, which becomes embedded in a “common” place.

Practices of Collective Action

Collective action practices require individuals to recognise community interests and then identify and mobilise community resources. For collective action to occur, the socio-cultural opportunity structure of scene must provide individuals with adequate resources. The totality of practices undertaken in the scene and their material arrangements inform individuals about the collective interest and identify potential participants in the action. The saturation of scene with repetitive practices with consistent symbolism and the repeated contact of practicing individuals provides the basis for framing community identity and territorial interests. In other words, from frequent contact with other individuals performing practices with similar meanings, a belief in community interest is born. In turn, symbolic practices such as spatial stickers or identity markers (for example, pinned coloured ribbons) send a message of readiness to mobilise.

In collective action practices, individuals achieve a full awareness of the “we” that becomes superior to the “I”. “We in ourselves” is transformed into “we for ourselves”. Individuals become aware that they are united by a communal interest and not only by a community of interests. The territory becomes a community interest: taking care of it and defending it against the actions of others. Teleoafective structures are transformed, new explicit rules are formulated and individuals develop new practices: communication, exclusion, struggle, negotiation. Repertoire of practices extend significantly.

The socio-cultural opportunity structures differ not only in the nature of resources they provide for communal practices, but also in terms of their richness, diversity, intensity and consolidation. Scenes with rich structures are those that allow for numerous practices to be enacted, while diverse ones are those that offer wider variety of practices. Rich structures are usually diverse at the same time, but one may also think of structure that is rich in practices that are not diverse. Intensity and consolidation of socio-cultural opportunity structures refers to the intelligibility of scenes and their constitutive practices. Intensity informs about the strength of meanings embedded in practices while consolidation denotes coherence of these meanings. These parameters allow to describe socio-cultural structures of both scenes themselves as well as greater units such as a city or a neighbourhood, which may be home to more or less numerous, diverse, intense and consolidated scenes. It can be expected that different scenes, and thus different socio-cultural opportunity structures, foster different community practices. The richer and more diverse the opportunity structures, the greater the possibilities for the development of diverse community practices (and thus the formation of diverse communities in the city): different identities, different interactions, different community cultural consciousness and different collective actions. In other words, in cities where we find more scenes and they are more consolidated, intense, and richer and to a greater extent diverse, individuals have more opportunities to pursue different lifestyles, to celebrate and develop community identities or to interact with other individuals who share the same tastes and values. Community forms in these cities will therefore be more numerous. In the next chapter, I will discuss several case studies of scenes with different socio-cultural opportunity structures in order to show how they translate into different communal practices.