“Let’s pause for a moment and ask a very basic and very important question: what is theory? We start by answering in the negative: the production of theory is not necessarily a scholastic exercise; the site of production of theory is not necessarily the ivory towers of academia; the producers of theory are not necessarily academically trained personnel in possession of qualifications that bestow on them the status of ‘officially approved theorists’.
“Positively, we would argue that the building blocks of the production of theory are the efforts of ordinary people to make sense of their social experience; the sites of production of theory are, then, everywhere such activity may take place; the producers of theory are – potentially – everyone who engages in reflection on their experiences so as to develop new and improved practices to problematic aspects of that experience.”
Cox, L. and Nilsen, A. G. (2005). Why do activists need theory? Euromovements Newsletter
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2025, January 12). Ordinary people making sense of their social experience [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/ordinary-people-making-sense-of-their-social-experience/
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