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Multi‐Local Living – The Approaches of Rational Choice Theory, Sociology of Everyday Life and Actor‐Network Theory
Author(s) -
Weiske Christine,
Petzold Knut,
Schad Helmut
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/tesg.12157
Subject(s) - sociology , everyday life , locality , epistemology , rational choice theory (criminology) , actor–network theory , perspective (graphical) , materiality (auditing) , social science , computer science , aesthetics , artificial intelligence , philosophy , linguistics , criminology
There is no ‘supra‐theory’, which might synthesise potential theoretical approaches for the study of multi‐local living. Three selected theoretical perspectives are discussed: according to rational choice theory (RCT), multiple localisations represent just one of a number of choices, selected on the basis of individual preferences and given restrictions. Sociology of everyday life (SEL) addresses the reproduction of social life by focusing on practices of actors within the various social frameworks of multi‐local everyday life. Actor‐network theory (ANT) provides a ‘toolkit’ to ‘de‐scribe’ the hybrid enactment of multi‐local households. Materiality, processes, and multiplicity are emphasised. Each perspective reflects partial realities of the multiplicity of multi‐local living. It is argued that the modelling of residential multi‐locality pursued by the three approaches is highly productive if their results are compared with one another and interpreted as versions of reality differently shaped, which are partly congruent, partly incongruent due to incommensurable ontological and theoretical positions.