Reflections on Practice Theory

Today we delivered the final version of the rather long-titled ‘New Practices for New Publics? Theories of social practice and the voluntary and community sector’ to our clients at the University of Brighton. This one required a bit of extra post-production work because the writers (a very dedicated group!) hope to publish the book and wanted to spend some extra time going through it with a fine-toothed comb. The Book Sprint itself was quite unique as the group spent a lot of time refining concepts and capturing undocumented stories which show the power of the community and voluntary sector. Take the example of New Cross Library, a former municipal library in London which was set to be sold and converted into a supermarket before the local community pulled together and took it over. They now successfully run it as a community, not-for-profit project. Luckily someone who has been covering this project in her PhD thesis was part of the Book Sprint to share the inspiring story.