ABSTRACT
Communities of practice and situated moralities of self are progressively replacing traditional communities and their values in many areas of modern life. The challenge this presents to academia and to sociology in particular, is a serious one. The social logic of practices is really nothing like the social logic of concepts, narratives and beliefs. As social forms change in a context of globalization, that sociology is losing its object as it loses its shared beliefs. The original sociological object, consisting of situated practices that operate independently from beliefs, is coming back into view after a long hiatus. The details of situated practice, which are rendered invisible by traditional conceptual and quantitative approaches, are indispensable to understanding contemporary social processes. Durkheim distinguished between morality in traditional societies, which, he argued, corresponded to traditional beliefs and values, and what he called 'justice' in a modern division of labour context, which, like practices, would transcend the boundaries of group beliefs and values.
