analysis) on action. This has the negative consequence of treating individual
motivation and institutional belief and value as the two underlying poles of
social order – when both are in actuality the reified results of social relations
of practice. Beliefs are the result – not the cause – of social action. Once cre-
ated, they can be used to justify action according to practice, but they can-
not be used to order that action in the first place, prospectively.
Any reading of the resulting micro/macro divide will show that “micro”
sociology, conceived in a context in which rules and institutionalized con-
texts of value and belief are given priority, appears to focus on issues involv-
ing individual belief and motivation in small scale interaction, while neglecting
the so-called larger issues of “structure” associated with inequality and oppres-
sion. Macro sociology, in turn, treats essential social processes, such as reli-
gion, family, or the law, as formal institutions driven by a structure of rules
or beliefs, rather than as sites in which practices must be enacted in detailed
and recognizable ways in order for what we think of as institutions to have
a continued existence.^3
The idea that these are the only viable alternatives is unfortunate, because
sociology, liberated from this dichotomy and focused on practice – instead
of on concepts and beliefs – has the potential to address essential issues of
inequality and structure, as features of the local order practices that are con-
stitutive of situations. Focusing on either individual motivation or so-called
macro structures glosses the details of practices – taking statistical accounts
as a measure of action – and working from individual (survey/interview)
accounts. Even when the problem of integrating individual beliefs and motives
with institutional structures is taken seriously, as in Anthony Giddens’
Structuration Theory(1981), institutional beliefs and values remain the central
constraint and the problem of individual motivation is treated as essential.^4
This tendency to focus on beliefs and motives, ignoring the powerful demon-
strations of their inadequacy, has masked the importance of practice to essential
Speaking in Tongues: A Dialectic of Faith and Practice • 253(^3) The word “enacted” is an important one. Practices themselves are all too often
equated with concepts, beliefs, or formal rituals. We use the word enacted to keep in
front of the reader constantly the idea that practices only exist as and when they are
done. They must be seen or heard, touched, smelt, tasted or felt. They must be rec-
ognizable in their material details. Concepts would be invisible in heads. Practices,
to be witnessable, must be enacted. 4
See Garfinkel Seeing Sociologically and discussion in Editor ’s Introduction of this
problem. See also a special issue of Law and Society on methods for an extended dis-
cussion of this issue.