Understanding the (Re)creation of Routines from Within

Abstract

This chapter addresses the question of how routines are created and recreated from within, and proposes a process model focusing on the internal dynamics of routines. In particular, by unpacking the performative and ostensive aspects of routines, it grounds endogenous explanations of routine creation and recreation to the situated understandings and actions of mutually susceptible participants. Mead’s concept of role taking helps to account for the fitting together of individual lines of action (performative) and the sharing of participants’ schemata (included in the ostensive) as mutually constituted processes that occur as participants develop distinct selves in the context of a joint activity. Moreover, the content and structure of the ostensive aspect is accounted for, and a conceptualization is proposed that does justice to it as a singular structural construct and allows for its multiplicity.