What can Practice Theory say about Power?

Practice theory is presented and used as a means to understand social change. Social change, however, cannot be fully understood without accounting for power, for social change cannot happen without changes in power relations. Power, though, has mostly eluded the grasp of practice theorists. In this paper, I seek to take steps towards addressing this lacuna. The first step in this is to argue that power is difficult to grasp through practice theory because for practice theory power is ubiquitous, immanent within the very concept of practice. Power is an effect and property of practice. This, however, only moves on the target. If power is ubiquitous to practice, how do we account for those social phenomena which demonstrably can exercise influence over the actions of other people, including at a distance? We need an understanding which can at the same time see power as ubiquitous to practice, and account for what is distinctive to ‘powerful’ social institutions and actors. In seeking such an understanding, I turn to Foucauldian understandings of governmentality; and to the sociology of translation.