Paper short abstract:

Digital maps are entangled in various everyday practice routines. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper explores disruption to routine through a focus on practice hacks; material (as practice element) is argued to be central in anchoring social change.

Paper long abstract:

Digital maps are entangled in broad arrays of social practice. For example, Google Maps and associated features (ranging from Ajax embedding of maps in websites through to Street-View) are deployed in various settings. As mediating technologies, digital maps are drawn on tacitly, at the level of discursive consciousness; as resources embedded in relatively stable routines.

Focusing on moments of rupture, where barriers or limitation are met and routine is disrupted, opportunities emerge to explore practice entities in flux. Where participants meet limitation, and modify practice to work around barriers, new ad-hoc arrangements are formed, which I label practice hacks: a knowledgeable (re)arrangement and instantiation of practice elements serving to re-establish routine.

In this paper, I develop a central argument grounded in recent research. Drawing on n=35 interviews, n=3 focus groups, and a survey with ~250+ respondents, I argue that materials are central to developing practice hacks. They are central to social change, both in altering social practices and in reshaping social positions and established identities. This problematizes the notion of materials gaining significance through practice. Using excerpts from qualitative data, the centrality of the material in developing practice hacks is discussed against two contexts relevant to sustainability: mundane mobilities e.g., mode of transport and choice or route; and everyday economies e.g., choice of home as landed capital investment. The discussion is sensitised by practice theory, drawing on Nick Couldry, Anthony Giddens, Wanda Orlikowski, Andreas Reckwitz, Ted Schatzki, Elizabeth Shove, Lucy Suchman, and Ann Swidler alongside influences from Mobilities literature.