Introduction : Engaging habits : theory and practice

![CDATA[This introduction to the Assembling and Governing Habits collection takes its initial bearings from the ways in which the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic crisis occasioned a wide range of governmental initiatives brought to bear on our daily habits. It then reviews how questions concerning the governance of habits has been implicated in a wide range of contemporary matters of concern, from climate change through to the management of waste disposal practices to the role of digital technologies in the algorithmic governance of everyday habits. These practical interests in habit are complemented by a discussion of the revived theoretical interest in habit and the varied literatures that this draws on: the work of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, assemblage theory and the perspective of mundane governance. The rationale governing the division of the collection into three parts focusing, respectively, on habit discourses, habit infrastructures and city habits, is reviewed. This provides as a setting for summaries of the chapters falling within each part of the book.]]