Behaviour is visible. Practice is what makes it repeat.
A practice is the socially organized, materially mediated and meaning-laden configuration within which behaviour occurs. Durable change comes from shifting that configuration, not simply telling individuals to act differently.
Every practice is held together by three elements.
The MMC lens – meanings, materials and competencies – gives practitioners a practical way to see why a practice persists and what an alternative would require.
The significance, identity, status, story or value attached to doing something – and what it would mean to stop.
The land, water, infrastructure, technologies, money, tools and physical resources that make the practice possible.
The skills, experience and know-how needed to perform and reproduce the practice.
Use the MMC lens to understand what would have to shift.
The example below uses cattle keeping. Select an element to see how a practice can be held in place – and why changing one part alone may fail.
Questions to ask about meanings
What does this practice signify? Whose meanings are dominant? Are they contested? What stories sustain the practice? What would it mean socially to stop?
Honour the cultural significance while creating a different expression of value, status or security that reduces ecological pressure.
Map the practice before prescribing the solution.
For each target practice, make the three elements visible, then trace which other strands regulate them.
| Element | Questions for the team | What an intervention might change |
|---|---|---|
| Meanings | What does the practice signify? Whose meanings dominate? What stories make it normal or desirable? | Identity, narrative, status, legitimacy, social expectations. |
| Materials | What physical things enable it? Who controls access? What infrastructure or finance does it depend on? | Technology, land, water, credit, market access, infrastructure. |
| Competencies | What skills reproduce it? Are they place-specific or portable? What capabilities are foreclosed? | Training, apprenticeship, collective learning, degrees of freedom to act. |
| Regulatory context | Which other strands shape the elements above? Through what rules, incentives, narratives or control? | Power, access, institutional mandates, price signals, enforcement. |
A person may know how to act differently but lack the freedom, authority, materials or access to do so.
Targeting one element in isolation guarantees adaptation elsewhere.
Introduce a new material without attending to meanings or competencies and people may reject it, repurpose it or become dependent on an external service. Training alone may fail when access and authority remain unchanged.
Explain how a change in one element is expected to propagate through the rest of the practice bundle.
Observe how people adapt the new element, what existing meanings persist and which power relations constrain use.
Add, remove or redesign elements according to what the practice does, not according to what the intervention assumed.
Practice sits inside power and systems.
Read the full Practices chapter.
The full reading edition carries the complete argument, examples, references and methodological detail behind this page.
