SIFO is pleased to host a public lecture by Professor Ted Schatzki, one of the foremost contemporary theorists of social practice. Social practice theory is an approach that underscores routine and collectively shared activities as constituting social phenomena in the everyday. Professor Schatzki’s recent research applies the practice theoretical framework to the digitalization of society.
Associations in digitalizing societies
Associations are an important feature of human societies. The digitalization of such societies appears to be altering the associations found there. But how? This talk explores the kinds of changes that associations are undergoing as societies digitalize. It examines how the dissemination of screens and growing presence of computation are adding new mechanisms of association and altering the mix of kinds of change that emerging associations represent.
The talk will also discuss the need to augment the familiar social theoretical typology of communities, groups, and organizations with new kinds of association such as scatters and swarms.
The lecture is organized by Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) and Center for Sociodigital Futures at University of Bristol.
Refreshments will be served after the lecture. Please sign up for attendance.
A biography
Theodore Schatzki is Professor of Philosophy and Geography at the University of Kentucky. He earned a BA in applied mathematics from Harvard University (1977) and graduated with degrees in philosophy from Oxford University (1979) and UC Berkeley (1986).
His research interests lie in theorizing social life, and he is widely recognized for his contributions to the stream of thought called practice theory.
Schatzki is the author of five single-authored monographs, the co-editor of six collected volumes, and responsible for over ninety articles on a wide range of topics in philosophy and social theory. Recent and current work examines the spaces, associations, times, and agencies of digitalizing societies as well as crypto-blockchains.
Schatzki was the 2023-24 Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky and the 13th most cited philosopher in the world in 2020. He is spending the first half of 2025 at the University of Bristol as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor.
Professor Ted Schatzki
Theodore Schatzki is Professor of Philosophy and Geography at the University of Kentucky. His research interests lie in theorizing social life, and he is widely recognized for his contributions to the stream of thought called practice theory.
