When is an Affordance? Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities

Organisation Work and Technology

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affordances, body, disabilities, technology, sociomateriality

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When is an Affordance? Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities. / Bloomfield, B P ; Latham, Yvonne ; Vurdubakis, T.
Lancaster : Lancaster University, 2009. (Organisation, Work and Technology Working Paper Series).

Research output: Working paper

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@techreport{6ca0aceb02664e1188ff360f1d72f3ff,

title = "When is an Affordance? Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities",

abstract = "Borrowed from ecological psychology, the concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, 'social' about technological artefacts. The concept, many argue, enables us to chart a safe course between the perils of technological determinism and social constructivism. The debate is still ongoing and this paper is a contribution to it. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts engage, and are engaged by disabled bodies, we propose that the 'affordances' of such objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.",

keywords = "affordances, body, disabilities, technology, sociomateriality",

author = "Bloomfield, {B P} and Yvonne Latham and T Vurdubakis",

year = "2009",

language = "English",

series = "Organisation, Work and Technology Working Paper Series",

publisher = "Lancaster University",

type = "WorkingPaper",

institution = "Lancaster University",

}

RIS

TY - UNPB

T1 - When is an Affordance? Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities

AU - Bloomfield, B P

AU - Latham, Yvonne

AU - Vurdubakis, T

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - Borrowed from ecological psychology, the concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, 'social' about technological artefacts. The concept, many argue, enables us to chart a safe course between the perils of technological determinism and social constructivism. The debate is still ongoing and this paper is a contribution to it. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts engage, and are engaged by disabled bodies, we propose that the 'affordances' of such objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.

AB - Borrowed from ecological psychology, the concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, 'social' about technological artefacts. The concept, many argue, enables us to chart a safe course between the perils of technological determinism and social constructivism. The debate is still ongoing and this paper is a contribution to it. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts engage, and are engaged by disabled bodies, we propose that the 'affordances' of such objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.

KW - affordances

KW - body

KW - disabilities

KW - technology

KW - sociomateriality

M3 - Working paper

T3 - Organisation, Work and Technology Working Paper Series

BT - When is an Affordance? Bodies, Technologies and Action Possibilities

PB - Lancaster University

CY - Lancaster

ER -

Research

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