Three Sides of the Same Coin: Practice (d) Time as Rhythms in Household Food Collectives

The idea that practices and temporality are entangled has long been suggested in different theories of practice. However, the question remains how this happens and what it means for organizing and society-at-large? Building on a longitudinal ethnographic study of household food collectives in Finland, we explore and characterize this relationship as one of rhythms. We argue that the social practice of food collectives is based in the embodied rhythms that emerge through the interaction of material and rational rhythms, which together allow and constrain the everyday practices. When synchronized, such rhythms result in practice(d) time; an intermediate relational social order located between individuals and society. This practice(d) time is the result of the continuous interaction of three rhythms that can be imagined as three sides of the same coin – head, tail, and edge.