No abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add a new term to the vocabulary of practice-based studies: “formativeness”, which denotes the kind of knowledge that is generated in the process of realizing the object of the practice and that is discovered while the form of the object is being shaped. This term focuses the analysis on how the elements of a practice are held together, rather than on what elements are involved in a practice. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by grounded theory, an empirical research study on craftswomen and their practical creativity (between the hand and the head) was designed. Storytelling was used in order to elicit the verbalization of the craftswomen's ways of knowing/doing, and the episodic interview was the technique employed to access and present the data. Findings – Formativeness can be described and interpreted as the effect of the following dimensions: the emergence of the object, the golden rule of realization, forming by hybridization, experimentation, playfulness, attachment to matter, and proper realization. Originality/value – The study's contribution may be evaluated in relation to how a vocabulary for describing and interpreting knowing-in-practice is constructed. Formativeness makes it possible to name the process by which ways of doing are discovered while activities are being performed. It contributes to a critique of representational knowledge, while offering an alternative line of inquiry.

The aim of this article is to enlarge practice-based studies to the consideration of institutional environment and institutional work, opening a dialogue with neo-institutionalism and, in so doing, advance the growing field of sociology of practice. This study attempts to do this by answering the question: how does a change in a practice become stabilized and what does the new practice do, once stabilized? Within practice-based studies, most studies have considered mainly endogenous changes, emergent from the community of practitioners under study. By contrast, this study discusses an exogenous change (a recent Italian law limits medically assisted reproduction practices) and the emergent relations that stabilize a provisional new practice through negotiation within the institutional context. Stabilization of a new practice is achieved by limitation, by rhetorical closure and by anchoring in technology. The aim of the article is to show the unintended power effects that a new practice generates once stabilized.

Focusing on the case of time-lapse imaging (TLI), this paper analyses how medical professionals negotiate the use of new ‘add-on’ fertility treatments in light of the limited evidence available. The data produced by TLI technologies is meant to help professionals identify the best embryo to be implanted. Embryo selection is essential in IVF practice for increasing pregnancy rates and reducing the negative effects of repeated failures. More than 5 years after the introduction of TLI in IVF labs, however, there has been no conclusive randomised control trial (RCT) evidence to show that the tools do indeed have a significant impact on pregnancy rates. Nonetheless, many public clinics in the UK have adopted such technologies. Consequently, our research asks: How is the use of TLI tools legitimised by professionals, in light of contradictory evidence? Focusing on 25 semi-structured staff interviews, we argue that professionals use several strategies to legitimise the use of TLI in the clinic without, however, challenging the tenets of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and the value it places on RCTs. Rather, professionals emphasise various advantages that TLI offers, including its use as a lab tool, its potential for knowledge production in embryology, and the role it plays in the management of patient expectations and course of treatment. This paper contributes to debates on the role of EBM in modern medicine and fertility care specifically – an area where this inter-relationship has been underexplored. We conclude by suggesting avenues towards a more nuanced understanding of EBM as it relates to IVF treatment and a rapidly changing biotechnology context.