Sociology

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Volume 44(3): 415–433
DOI: 10.1177/0038038510362469

Bodies,Technologies and Action Possibilities:

When is an Affordance?
■ Brian P. Bloomfield
Lancaster University

■ Yvonne Latham
Lancaster University

■ Theo Vurdubakis
Lancaster University

A B S T R AC T
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 con-
structivism. This article questions the sociological adequacy of the concept as conven-
tionally deployed. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts
engage, and are engaged by, disabled bodies, we propose that the ‘affordances’ of tech-
nological objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably
bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.

K E Y WO R D S
affordances / body / disabilities / sociomateriality / technology

Introduction

S
ocial science, Dennis Wrong (1961) has argued, tends to oscillate between
‘undersocialized’ and ‘oversocialized’ conceptions of ‘man’ (sic).1 According
to many commentators, the sociology of technology is currently caught up

415
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416 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

in a very similar predicament (see for instance Kling, 1992a, 1992b; vs. Grint and
Woolgar, 1992). Sociological studies of technological objects, it is claimed, are
faced with an unpalatable choice between undersocialized and oversocialized
conceptions of technology – represented by technological determinism and social
constructivism respectively. This framing of the problem inevitably leads to a
quest for a ‘third way’, a conception of technology that is neither over nor under-
socialized but is – not unlike baby bear’s porridge – ‘just right’. For seekers of this
third way, Gibson’s (1979) concept of ‘affordances’ has obvious attractions. As is
well known, Gibson coined this neologism as a description for the ‘action possi-
bilities’ which a given environment presents an animal. For instance, for an object
to be graspable, that ‘object must have opposite surfaces separated by less than
the span of the hand’ (1979: 133). ‘Affordances’ reflect the co-evolution of
(human and non-human) animals and environments. They are understood as
products of the animal–environment system:
… an affordance is neither an objective property nor a subjective property; or it is
both if you like …[It] points both ways, to the environment and to the observer.
(Gibson, 1979: 129)

Gibson saw the concept as equally applicable to the artificial environment

humans build for themselves. ‘It is a mistake to separate the natural from the
artificial as if there were two environments: artifacts have to be manufactured
from natural substances’ (1979: 130). Drawing on Gibson, Hutchby (2001a)
has, in a contribution to this journal, proposed that the way out of the deter-
minism vs. constructivism impasse is to recognize the range ‘of affordances that
particular [technological] artefacts by virtue of their materiality possess’
(Hutchby, 2001b: 193, our emphasis), and that in turn ‘these affordances con-
strain the ways that they can possibly be [interpreted]’ (2001a: 447). This
allows us, he claims, to counter the (over-socialized) conception of technology
which he identifies with a constructivist (over)emphasis on social actors’ inter-
pretations of technological objects, without falling prey to (an under-socialized)
technological determinism.
Let us note in passing that the notion of ‘affordances’ has already under-
gone a number of migrations to other fields of social science, sometimes suc-
cessfully, sometimes less so. In the course of these migrations the concept
typically ‘travels light’, leaving behind much of the conceptual apparatus of
Gibsonian psychology (such as direct perception, theory of information, theory
of meaning; see Michaels and Carello, 1981). This, in turn, facilitates its assim-
ilation to the vernacular of a new field. As a result of these adaptations a range
of different meanings is now associated with the term, some of which depart
considerably from Gibson’s original formulation. Consider for example the
(Actor-Network Theory compatible) definition of ‘affordances’ given by Akrich
and Latour (1992: 259):
Prescription; proscription; affordances, allowances: What a device allows or forbids
from the actors – humans and nonhuman – that it anticipates; it is the morality of
a setting both negative (what it prescribes) and positive (what it permits).

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 417

Hutchby’s (2001a) sociological adaptation of affordances has attracted atten-

tion and commentary both within sociology (e.g. Rappert, 2003; Woolgar,
2002) and within related fields such as cultural studies (e.g. Dant, 2004;
Gordon, 2006), or organization studies (Fayard and Weeks, 2007; Zammuto
et al., 2007). Accordingly we take it as a starting point for our own discussion
here. The rest of the article is organized as follows; the next section focuses on
the ways ‘action possibilities’ are made available (or unavailable) by means of,
and as, technological artefacts. Then, drawing on the work of Scarry (1985), we
propose that the ‘affordances’ of technological objects need to be understood in
terms of the sociohistorically contingent folding(s) of the body and the artefac-
tual world into one another. The section after that provides an empirical illus-
tration of our argument, drawing on the ethnographic investigation of a scheme
run by a British non-governmental organization (‘CommunITy’ – a pseudonym).
CommunITy aims to address social isolation among housebound disabled indi-
viduals by providing them with reconditioned computers (i.e. IT – information
technology) to access the internet. The article concludes with some reflections
on the implications of the arguments developed here for ongoing debates on the
question of the ‘sociality’ of technology.

The Parable of the Plug

The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, but the noun affordance is not. I have
made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the ani-
mal in a way that no existing term does. (Gibson, 1979: 127)

Transformations of verbs into nouns (nominalization) should be handled with

care. Nominalizations usually reduce processes to their effectivity – eat-ability
becomes a property of apples and cook-with-ability a property of fires (e.g.
Scarantino, 2003) – thereby eliding details of process and agency (Fairclough,
2001). Accounts of ‘affordances’ often strip them of their relational character by
identifying them as properties of the object and matching them to the ‘effectivi-
ties’ of the subject (e.g. Shaw and Turvey, 1981; Turvey, 1992). We have already
seen how Hutchby, for instance, describes affordances as something that a given
technological artefact ‘possesses’ by virtue of its materiality (e.g. 2001a: 447,
2001b: 193). But ‘cook-with-ability’ is not a property of fires. Rather, humans
have developed practices and equipment for making fires which are ‘cook-with-
able’ and, importantly, for keeping them this way and thus preventing them from
becoming house fires or forest fires, which are not.
There is also a question as to whether the language of animal–environment
pairings provides an adequately sociological lens for viewing encounters with
technological artefacts. For example, to say that a postbox ‘affords letter-mailing
to a letter-writing human in a community with a postal system’ (Gibson, 1979:
139; also Hutchby, 2001b: 27) may well be adequate in terms of an ecological-
psychological discussion of perception. From a sociological viewpoint, however,
this framing in terms of a human animal encountering a post-box and picking

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418 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

up its letter-mailing affordance throws but little light on such encounters.

Affordances are said to be possessed ‘by virtue’ of the artefact’s materiality
(Hutchby, 2001b: 193). They are thus ‘independent of the actor’s experience,
knowledge, culture or ability to perceive’ (McGrenere and Ho, 2000: 3). The
‘affordances’ of a post-box, however, exist only insofar as a particular letter-
writing and mailing culture, knowledge, experience and so forth are actively
maintained. The letter-mailing ‘affordance’ of the post-box is not something it
possesses by virtue of its materiality but an ongoing – ‘sociomaterial’ (Barad,
1998) – accomplishment.
To illustrate what we see at stake here, let us consider an example of
Hutchby’s (2001a, 2001b) use of the concept of affordances. Hutchby’s main
objective, it will be recalled, is to draw a line under what he sees as the infla-
tion of sociality (at the expense of the materiality of technologies) in construc-
tivist accounts. The worst offender in this respect is the ‘technology as text’
analogy propounded by Steve Woolgar and his fellow ‘technographers’.
Hutchby revisits Grint and Woolgar’s (1997) analysis of a usability trial for a
new educational computer where a potential user (Ruth) is asked to connect a
printer lead to the new machine while being observed and videoed by members
of the design team. After scrutinizing the manual and examining the computer
Ruth (we are told) was unable to complete the task and eventually turned for
help to one of the observers (Nina). Following an inspection by Nina and her
colleagues it is announced that the task was in fact ‘impossible’ (Grint and
Woolgar, 1997: 89; also Hutchby, 2001a: 451). The printer lead Ruth had been
given was actually designed for a previous model and would not fit the socket
on the new machine. Grint and Woolgar see Ruth as labouring (and failing) to
effect a reconciliation of the instructions in the manual with the observable fea-
tures of the machine. They highlight issues of ‘identity and authority’ as key ele-
ments in the performance of this interpretive labour. For instance, Nina et al.
were insiders who had authority to ‘speak for’ the machine whereas Ruth was
an outsider, an intentionally ‘naïve’ user.
Hutchby offers a different perspective on Ruth’s actions:
What is missed in [Grint and Woolgar’s] interpretation is precisely the sense in
which Ruth’s interaction with the machine is underpinned by a material substratum
in which she encounters, not a text, but an array of affordances. For example, one
of the affordances of the socket at the back of the computer is that a lead with a
similarly shaped connector can be inserted into it; similarly, the connector at the end
of the lead has as one of its affordances that it may be inserted into a similarly
shaped socket. These affordances may be reinforced by illustrations in the manual
(though it is not clear whether the manual is, in fact, illustrated: reference is made
to what Ruth ‘reads’ in the manual and what she ‘sees’ on the machine …) But
undoubtedly they are also available as a result of Ruth’s everyday experiences of
‘plugging devices in’. Ruth’s ultimate failure to accomplish the task as set, is, indeed,
due to the fact that connector and socket are technically incompatible. … We are
not told whether she actually attempts any connection or is simply baffled by the
unavailability of a socket that ‘looks right’. Nevertheless, among the array of affor-
dances that the artefact confronting Ruth possesses, these particular ones are

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 419

observably available to her and she can attempt to carry out actions within the
framework that they make available. (2001a: 452)

Clearly Hutchby is right in that the unavailability of a socket that ‘looks right’
is a necessary part of any explanation of Ruth’s actions. At the same time it is
not a sufficient explanation and issues of ‘identity and authority’ are indeed
relevant. First, the mediation of the manual – here glossed as ‘reinforcing
affordances’ – means that we are not talking about (Gibsonian) ‘direct percep-
tion’. Instead, we could surmise that Ruth treats the issue as an intellectual
puzzle to which she has proved inadequate under the gaze of the technically
sophisticated observers. She therefore appears relieved when her self-image is
repaired by being authoritatively told that the task was indeed impossible:
Oh it’s not just me being thick. Thank god for that hah hah! I came in the back an’
as soon as I got round here, with the machine I looked at this and looked at that
and I thought ‘No I’m being stupid, now this is silly.’ Well I wasn’t hahahah! [Ruth]
(Grint and Woolgar, 1997: 90)

Ruth was only looking for this particular ‘affordance’ having been assured by
those ‘who knew better’ that it was there and, in a way reminiscent of Asch’s
(1951) experimental subjects, appeared to doubt herself rather than the experts.
Further, although Ruth’s everyday experiences of ‘plugging devices in’ are,
as Hutchby argues, relevant, they are, like posting letters, cultural knowledge.
Moreover, this incident differs from those everyday situations in the sense that
the action has to be performed subject to a specific set of rules and conditions
imposed by the insiders. For example, Ruth does not appear to have the option
of exploring other ‘affordances’ available in that setting, such as looking for a
different lead or changing (or asking someone else to change) the plug.
We can illustrate this last point by means of another ‘plugging-in’ story, this
one narrated by Kranz (2000) and Lovell and Kluger (1995). During the failed
Apollo 13 moon mission, astronauts had to abandon the malfunctioning com-
mand module (Odyssey) and seek refuge in the lunar module (Aquarius) for the
duration of the trip back to Earth. Aquarius, however, was designed for the moon
landing and was not suitable for lengthy habitation. For instance, the carbon
dioxide filters had a lifetime of about 40 person-hours, after which they had to
be replaced. The Odyssey filters were square and would not fit the round sock-
ets present onboard the Aquarius. The mission engineers had to somehow devise
a way of plugging the square filters into the round sockets using only objects
available on the spacecraft to accomplish this task. A pile of diverse objects was
duly collected and a connection improvised using suit hoses, cardboard covers
from on-board manuals, plastic stowage bags, all stuck together with duct tape.
The engineers then radioed instructions to the astronauts who succeeded in repli-
cating the device: ‘[T]he contraption wasn’t very handsome, but it worked’
(Lovell and Kluger, 1995). The build-up of carbon dioxide was avoided.
Ruth’s unsuccessful ‘plug-in’ and the Apollo 13 astronauts’ successful one
were both collective accomplishments. The affordances of technological objects
are typically interfered with, and modulated by, what we might call the

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420 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

‘co-presence’ (Michael, 2000: 112) of other social actors and other objects.
Rather than talk of an individual encountering an object (in the manner of a
reptile encountering a stone, or a buffalo encountering a river – see Hutchby,
2001a: 447), we need to talk instead of how and, importantly, when specific
action possibilities emerge out of the ever-changing relations between people,
between objects, and between people and objects. Michael (2000: 112) uses the
term ‘cascades’ of affordances to describe such processes: ‘for example; socks
afford the easier wearing of boots which afford the attachment of crampons
which afford the climbing of snow-covered slopes which themselves become
“affordable”, that is to say climbable ….Indeed the affordances of any tech-
nology are always, at least potentially, ambiguous.’ It is easy, but rather unin-
formative, to say that object X affords this but not that, that a car affords driving
and a computer mouse affords clicking, but that neither affords eating (e.g. Dohn,
2006: 1). And yet, in 1970 Australian strongman Leon Sampson ate a car in
order to win an AUS$20,000 prize. Surely his actions are better understood in
terms of the particular social circumstances that prompted them – including
membership in a media-oriented culture that prizes the extraordinary and the
bizarre – rather than by tinkering with the list of the affordances possessed/not
possessed by the car? The ‘affordances’ of technological artefacts should, we sug-
gest, be treated as themselves topics for analysis – as Rappert (2003) indicates –
rather than as bottom-line explanations.

Affordances Revisited
One way of approaching the analysis of affordances is to ask: how, and under
what circumstances are particular ‘affordances’ made present? How and when
are different action possibilities made available – or unavailable – to specific
actors in particular settings? Such questions are particularly pertinent when we
consider how dis-abled bodies engage with, and are engaged by, technological
artefacts. Within the fields of sociology and disability studies there is an exten-
sive literature that identifies the ways in which abilities and disabilities emerge
and are allocated within specific sociomaterial arrangements, settings and situa-
tions (Law, 1994; Moser, 2005; Moser and Law, 1999; Winance, 2006).
Against this backdrop, Elaine Scarry’s (1985) work can help highlight the
ways in which technological artefacts tend to take as their referent particular
(culturally situated) versions of the human body. A made object, Scarry argues,
‘is a projection of the human body’ (1985: 281; see also Mumford, 1963). The
placing of a bandage over a wound replaces the missing skin; spectacles, micro-
scopes and telescopes reproduce the lens of the human eye while correcting for
its weaknesses. This representation of the human body in made objects is at
work not only in the objectification of various body parts, but more generally
of human attributes. For instance, the various technological artefacts associated
with the written text (books, indexes, photocopiers) replicate, correct and aug-
ment human memory. This projection of the body into made objects ultimately
recasts ‘the division between the inside and the outside of the body’ since the

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 421

separation and objectification of bodily attributes is matched by the recovery

and re-incorporation of such objectified parts (e.g. heart valves, insulin pumps,
artificial limbs) into the body.
A chair, Scarry argues (1985: 290), does more than just represent ‘the shape
of the human skeleton, the shape of body weight, nor even the shape of pain
perceived, but the shape of perceived-pain-wished-gone’. The chair therefore
possesses what Scarry terms, a ‘counterfactual’ structure in that it takes on the
perceptual characteristics not only of the actuality of tiredness but also the per-
ceptual characteristics that aim to counter or reverse that tiredness.2 The ways
in which bodies and made objects co-define one another calls attention:
… to the fact that it is part of the work of creating to deprive the external world of
the privilege of being inanimate – of, in other words, its privilege of being irrespon-
sible to its sentient inhabitants on the basis that it itself is nonsentient. (1985: 285)

It is worth noting at this point, that such processes of ‘projection’ and their artefac-
tual manifestations, such as chairs, remain nevertheless culturally and historically
situated. Large sections of humanity – in Asia, Africa and pre-conquest America –
did not use chairs nearly as much as their European conquerors. In these cultures it
was far more common to sit cross-legged on the ground on mats or cushions.
Also for many – beyond Euro-America – squatting is a restful pose (Ingold,
1996). Most Euro-Americans, however, having grown up in a world of chairs,
find this position painful to sustain over any length of time. The story of the
‘adoption’ of the chair by the great majority of humanity is therefore at the same
time a story of Occidental cultural dominance over the other. Following on
Scarry’s argument we could add that bodies are themselves, so to speak, reflec-
tions of the world of made objects as well as vice versa. A body’s abilities and
disabilities – disability researchers insist – cannot be defined independently of the
made world (including the politics of artefacts, accidental or otherwise) that body
inhabits. Drawing on Scarry, Cooper (2001: 25) argues that:
Each object – chair, cup, spoon – can never be separate and self-contained; by defi-
nition, it is always partial, a con-verse in a dynamic network of convertibilities. The
body, too, is necessarily partial, momentarily defining itself through assemblage
with another partial object.

We can then reframe the question of the affordances ‘of’ technological objects.
Such ‘affordances’, we might say, name the various ongoing exchanges of
attributes between human bodies and the world of made objects. Understood in
this manner ‘affordances’ cannot be seen as merely bundles of properties ‘pos-
sessed’ by objects (Hutchby, 2001a, 2001b) which in turn may, or may not, be
activated by corresponding ‘effectivities’ of the subject (Shaw and Turvey, 1981;
Turvey, 1992). It is rather the manner in which such attributions of ‘simple
location’ are made by actors in particular social settings that should be the
object of sociological study. In short we are proposing that ‘action possibilities’
are better understood and described via a vocabulary of processes than one of
end-states (Cooper and Law, 1995).

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422 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

In what follows, we attempt to flesh out our argument by drawing on

and analysing ethnographic material gathered as part of an ongoing research
project exploring bodily engagements with computers. The empirical focus
of this research was a scheme (‘CommunITy’) intended to combat social iso-
lation among housebound disabled individuals in north-west England
through the use of IT. The scheme provides participants with industry-
sourced reconditioned computers and adaptations suited to their disability
to support their use of the computer. Each potential user is to have support
from a volunteer with some ‘computer literacy’. One of us, Yvonne, acted as
participant observer on the project and was involved in installing the equip-
ment and also revisiting users in order to determine whether, and if so how,
they had been using their computers.3 In respect of recording the data gen-
erated during this involvement a detailed research diary was maintained and
a digital voice recorder was used (when acceptable to the respondent) and/or
detailed notes made. Drawing on this research we relate the case of ‘Jim’4
(an individual whose circumstances were fairly typical of other scheme
members) in order to show how the ‘affordances’ of technological objects
and the effectivities or action capabilities (Dohn, 2006) of human agents
should not be viewed as given but emerge as situated, and indeed ongoing,
accomplishments.

Jim in his Environment

Jim is in his early sixties. He has cerebral palsy, a dislocated hip and asthma.
He uses a wheelchair all of the time and would have no mobility without it. Jim
has difficulty communicating because of the effects that his cerebral palsy has
had on his physical ability to speak.
On installation day, Tom (the coordinator of the scheme) and I arrived at the sup-
ported living scheme where Jim lives, with the computer, printer, keyboard etc.
loaded into my car. Dan, Jim’s Support Worker, told us that the computer was to be
installed on a unit in the kitchen upon which Jim ate all his meals. This, because of
the height of the unit, was the only place Jim could get his wheelchair close enough
to access the keyboard. He could not have the keyboard on his lap because of his
physical impairments which leave his body quite twisted. We were told that a tray
could not be fitted onto Jim’s wheelchair, on which he could have put the keyboard,
because this might affect the strength and stability of his wheelchair. Dan said that
a joiner was going to ‘measure up’ with a view to designing a workstation which
would accommodate the computer and also allow Jim access with his wheelchair;
but for the time being it would have to stay on the kitchen unit.

We started installing the equipment and soon discovered that the plug on the power
lead that connects the computer to the mains socket was the wrong type of plug. It
was slightly bigger than a domestic plug and the earth pin was horizontal rather
than vertical. We did not try to plug it into the socket as it was visually obvious that
it would not have fitted. I then asked Jim whether he had any spare plugs anywhere
and he pointed to a drawer in the kitchen which Dan opened.

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 423

Dan found a spare plug and passed it to Tom, along with a screwdriver. Tom began
to change the plug using the screwdriver and also a knife (the screwdriver was too
big for the small screws on the inside of the plug), voicing his concerns whilst doing
so of the health and safety implications involved. Once the plug had been changed
the equipment was installed with the computer on the kitchen unit along with the
keyboard, speakers and monitor; because of the lack of room the printer was placed
under a table next to the kitchen unit, on top of which was Jim’s microwave. Jim
has difficulty steadying his hands so a rollerball mouse had been ordered for him.
However, this had not arrived and when we left he was trying to use the conventional
mouse but with great difficulty.

The installation of Jim’s computer appears to neatly fit the ideal-typical ‘affor-
dance story’. Thus the computer arrives as the proverbial black box in order to
become part of Jim’s ‘environment’. Yvonne, Tom and Dan are in this version
engaged in ascertaining Jim’s ‘effectivities’ and how these match, or fail to
match, the machine’s ‘affordances’. There are constraints imposed by Jim’s
medical conditions and the fact that he would have to access the computer from
his wheelchair. Further considerations arose due to the size and spatial config-
uration of his home and the objects within it (such as the kitchen appliances,
storage cupboards and furniture) together with their ‘affordances’ – such as
whether they could accommodate the computer as regards space or load bear-
ing capabilities and so on.
On closer inspection, however, a number of significant complications
become apparent. Let’s note how the quest for the ‘affordances’ that will match
Jim’s ‘effectivities’ takes the form of re-negotiations of both the materiality and
the ‘morality of the setting’ (Akrich and Latour, 1992: 259). Consider, for
instance, the non-standard plug. In circumstances analogous to Ruth’s unsuc-
cessful plug-in, Jim’s successful one is again not a case of an individual actor
encountering the singular object. Instead we have the ‘co-presence’ of other
actors (Tom, Dan and Yvonne) who egg each other on, as well as the orches-
tration of multiple objects (substitute domestic plug, screwdriver, knife, etc.)
and their interrelationships in ‘cascades of affordances’ in the course of
attempting to make the machine use-able by Jim.
The plug’s horizontal earth pin was designed in accordance with technical
standards operative in certain industrial settings and thus incompatible with
domestic power sockets. (It will be recalled that the reconditioned computers
for the CommunITy scheme came from industrial donors.) The industrial stan-
dard for plugs or sockets is specifically meant to prevent the connection of
unauthorized equipment to an electrical supply. The mismatch between (indus-
trial) plug and (domestic) socket is therefore a material expression of particular
rules of membership and of proper conduct. On this occasion, however, the
moral order represented (and enforced) by the materiality of industrial plugs
and authorized sockets is renegotiated by Tom, Yvonne and Dan. Furthermore,
Tom’s comment about health and safety signals his awareness that changing the
plug is bound up with rules and regulations about who was allowed to do what
with particular objects. We might suggest that the ‘morality’ of the industrial

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424 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

plug became subordinated to the morality of the CommunITy scheme: the (now
errant) plug had to be changed so that the computer could be set up for Jim,
and Tom and Yvonne could thereby discharge their duties – their moral com-
mitment to ‘get Jim connected’.
In contradistinction to the typical affordance story (the reptile encounter-
ing the stone, etc.), ‘affordances’ in Jim’s environment are not just picked-up
but made real. They are therefore better described through a vocabulary of
emergence and construction rather than one of (mere) discovery. ‘Construction’
here refers to the, often piecemeal, assemblage of what Scarry (1985: 285) calls
‘counterfactual structures’. An assemblage aimed to compensate for the mis-
representation of Jim’s body in the computer (Grint and Woolgar’s (1997)
‘[pre]configured user’) and to counter the latter’s accidental politics. Such struc-
tures, we have seen, carry a moral load (Akrich and Latour, 1992; Scarry, 1985)
directly mirroring the negative valuation of those of Jim’s conditions (discom-
fort, isolation) that they (aim to) ameliorate.

Counterfactual Structures

Nine months later Yvonne made a follow-up visit to Jim and was struck by
the sheer amount of bricolage that had been carried out in order make the
computer usable for Jim in his wheelchair. Jim had had a shelf (worksta-
tion) fitted onto the wall in his living room and his computer and computer
equipment, along with his telephone, were all located on this shelf. Jim had
also had a makeshift tray taped to his wheelchair. These improvisations
engineered the ‘cascades of affordances’ deemed necessary for Jim to use
the computer.
Dan: Did he have this when you came before?
Yvonne: No, I don’t think so. When I came the computer was on the kitchen unit
and everything was up on the unit. So, how did you manage when it was
like that?
D: We struggled a bit didn’t we?
Jim: Yeah (nodding)
D: But we’re sorted now.

So, Jim had had his workstation built and it seemed to ‘fit’ him well in that it
allowed access for his wheelchair. However, because of the height (in order for it to
be accessible by Jim in his wheelchair) it was impossible for him to see the keyboard.
Dan explained how they overcame this problem.

D: With the keyboard, if the keyboard was flat on there (the shelf) he can’t see it.
Same with the phone. If it’s flat on there (the shelf), with him being sort of here
(Dan points to the height of Jim in his wheelchair) he can’t see. Yeah, so we just
tilt them up.
Y: So what did you do? Is that sponge? (I point to the phone).
D: That’s just sponge.

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 425

Dan had cut a piece of sponge in a triangular wedge shape so that Jim’s phone sits
at an angle in order to make it possible for him to see the numbers. Without it Jim
would have great difficulties in making calls. Even the use of operator services
requires that the user be able to see and ‘dial’ the access number.
Y: And what’s this? (I point to the keyboard). Is this on sponge as well?
D: It’s just er.
Y: Who’s the technical guy, (jokingly) is that you?
D: Yeah, I stuck a piece of wood [wedged shaped] behind it an stuck some er, it’s
only Blu-Tack®.

With this wood, sponge and Blu-Tack® bricolage, Jim was able to see the key-
board and determine which keys to press when using the computer. As well as
these physical adaptations using assorted objects, Jim’s body was also undergo-
ing adaptation. The rollerball mouse that had been on order since the installa-
tion visit had taken some time to arrive. In the intervening period, with effort
Jim had managed to use a conventional wireless mouse, and with even
greater effort a wired mouse. In the event, when it was delivered the roller-
ball mouse had been sent back. Yvonne’s (and Dan’s) surprise at the ability
of Jim to learn to use the ‘normal’ mouse is a handy reminder of the relational
(subjective/objective, both/neither) character of ‘affordances’. In other words,
‘abilities’ or ‘effectivities’ and ‘affordances’ may be best thought of not as pre-
given but as emergent in relation to one another. We might say that in Jim’s case
the restricted movement of his body, and the discomfort he experienced when
attempting to move or assume a posture beyond his limits, was counterfactu-
ally reversed by specific – if contingent – sociomaterial (wheelchair, wireless
mouse, etc.) configurations.

Convertibilities
The representations (Scarry, 1985) of the user that are built into a computer are
not just associated with matters of physical constitution. For, not unlike
Gibson’s post-box, the functioning of the computer presupposes particular cul-
tural practices of reading and writing (e.g. reading drop-down menus and
selecting or clicking menu items). In this connection it is important to note that
Jim experiences some problems with written language. At the time of Yvonne’s
follow-up visit he had not been connected to the internet (the objective of
CommunITy). Principally this was because Dan was worried that Jim might
click on sites ‘that should be avoided’. Dan wished to uphold particular social
rules regarding the use of the technology but how could this moral order be
maintained if Jim could not recognize the dangers associated with certain inter-
net sites? A potential solution to this problem was sought in the form of
Thunder, a software package that verbalizes the computer user’s actions, some-
thing that would inform Jim about what he was doing as he went along and
that wouldn’t require an ability on his part to read the text or instructions on
the screen.

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426 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

Jim began to tell us what things he thought should be added into the computer but
it was unclear what he was saying. He then began to demonstrate Thunder. This is
software that speaks (in a foreign accent) the words that are on the screen.

D: There it is. Thunder.

Y: Oh is this that thing you were saying about.

Jim switches on the software. The noise is deafening as a computerized, robotic,

male voice with a non-British accent booms out.

Y: Is this what your volunteer [Chris] put in?

Each time Jim moves the mouse to a different icon or presses a button on the key-
board, which he is doing to demonstrate the software to me, the action he takes is
repeated by this robotic male voice. For instance, if ‘My Documents’ was clicked the
software would say ‘my documents’, etc.

Y: You could do with a British version couldn’t you. (laughing) He’d do your head
in him wouldn’t he? (…)

Jim carries on demonstrating what he can do on the computer.

D: What we do is we get books and he just sort of copies out of books. Like Dick
Whittington.

Jim clicks on the Dick Whittington text and the Thunder software says ‘Dick
Whittington script initialized’. Jim is talking, it’s unclear but he’s indicating that he
cannot find the document he is looking for.

D: Did you not save it?

The software is repeating, i.e. verbalizing, everything Jim is doing.

D: When he types stuff it reads what, as he’s typing it, it reads each letter.
Y: Right, so you know you’re spelling it right?
D: Yeah and then when you’ve done a line it will read the line back.
Y: Right, so do you find it really useful Jim?
J: I do.
D: Really it’s for people who can’t see very well.
(…)

The computerized voice is still at it and Jim is trying to turn it off.

D: It’s a bit annoying after a bit isn’t it? It does help though.
Y: Yeah.

Jim is speaking here about the Thunder software but it’s unclear.

Y: It would help with the internet though wouldn’t it? Until you get familiar.

The computerized voice goes crazy.

Y: He sounds like he’s gone mad that bloke doesn’t he?

J: Turn it off …(laughing)
D: Knock it off.
J: I am doing.

The voice ceases.

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 427

Jim’s use of the computer is mediated by the Thunder software (installed by

Chris, Jim’s volunteer) which provides confirmation or corrective feedback con-
cerning his actions using the computer keyboard and mouse. Notably, as Dan
indicated, this software is not intended for individuals such as Jim, but rather
is for those with visual impairment.5 Inter alia, this particular artefact effects
the conversion between Jim’s level of literacy and that presupposed by the com-
puter. Furthermore, as far as Dan is concerned, it might protect Jim from the
dangers of the internet. Its deployment can be construed as another instance of
projection – the human capability to interpret inscriptions becoming material-
ized through computer software. In a sense this projection represents a transfer
of attributes – that is, an ‘effectivity’ of the subject is made into an ‘affordance’
of the object. Furthermore, though the presumed moral order that might disci-
pline Jim’s exploration of the internet still depends on his recognition and
understanding of the words articulated via Thunder, we might suggest that it
is simultaneously underscored by the disembodied voice that almost stands as
witness to his actions.
Amongst the members of CommunITy, Jim’s case was far from atypical.
Each member’s set of circumstances (their history, disabilities, domestic space,
contact with others, etc.) presented a diversity of particulars that brought forth
(or in some cases failed to bring forth) a corresponding variety of sociomaterial
arrangements necessary to get them connected. For instance, Linda, another
member of the group, is in her forties. With severe multiple sclerosis she is con-
fined to a wheelchair and had been using the computer for typing. At the time
of the follow-up visit she had been given a new wheelchair but this one did not
have a tray on which she could place her keyboard, which unfortunately meant
that she was no longer able to use the computer. Broadband equipment meant
to enable her to get online was stored behind an armchair in her living room
because her volunteer had left the scheme before sorting it out for her. In
Linda’s situation then we might suggest that there was a collective failure – a
keenly felt absence of the sort of sociomaterial bricolage that made possible
Jim’s ‘computer use’.
Kathryn, also with severe multiple sclerosis, would not have a volunteer
because she didn’t want to be seen having a spasm. Kathryn would like to use
the computer but because of the unsteadiness of her hand cannot do so. Instead
her son uses it ‘for her’ – as she put it. She was to receive a rollerball mouse to
help with the unsteadiness, but this had not yet been provided.
Ron is a quadriplegic in his fifties. Ron’s computer, initially installed on a
workstation in his bedroom, was supplied with voice recognition software. This
equipment allowed him to use his computer – providing someone was there to
wheel his workstation into position, switch on the computer, and put on the
headset needed to use the software. Afterwards, someone had to remove Ron’s
headset, switch off the computer, and wheel the workstation out of the way to
allow access for his carers. Some months later, Ron was supplied with a new
chin-operated wheelchair and to reflect his new mobility the workstation was
moved into the living room. He also received a specialist mouse that he can
blow into to control the computer. Ron still needs someone to get him out of

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428 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

bed, put him in his new wheelchair, and turn the computer on and off for him.
He can only get out of bed, he explained, on ‘a good day’.
For Ron, as for the others, we might say that what the computer afforded
(or not) was dependent on the co-presence (or absence) of various other people
and objects. For us then, situations such as those of Jim, Kathryn, Linda, Ron
and the rest, draw attention to the diverse human and artefactual elements that
typically have to be configured for a technology’s ‘affordances’ to emerge.

Conclusion

If there is a common pattern that we can infer from the cases discussed here, it
is that the ‘affordances’ of technological objects cannot be easily separated from
the arrangements through which they are realized in practice. Drawing on
Engestrom (1990) then, we must ask not only what a given ‘affordance’ is, but
for whom and when?6
‘[I]n the empirical moment of engagement between a human and a techno-
logical artefact’, argues Hutchby (2001b: 194), ‘both may be treated as equally
stable for all practical purposes’. For us it is the ‘may’ that deserves the empha-
sis. For most CommunITy members, the empirical process of engagement
involved considerable renegotiation and problematization of – what followers
of Gibson often describe as – (human) effectivities and (machine) affordances
(e.g. Shaw and Turvey, 1981; Turvey, 1992). Stabilization, when it occurred,
was a local, perhaps temporary, and often fragile, accomplishment. A number
of aspects of these sociomaterial explorations and renegotiations are particu-
larly relevant to the present discussion. First, and in order to understand the
processes by means of which particular action possibilities were realized or
foreclosed in a given setting, we need to look beyond the (individual)human /
(individual)machine dyad. We have therefore sought to remain aware of the
ways in which technological ‘affordances’ were catalysed by or interfered with,
by the ‘co-presence’ (Michael, 2000) of other people and other objects. Second,
these renegotiations are not conducted ex nihilo and do presuppose shared
understandings of, and reliance upon, material enablements and constraints
(Hutchby, 2003). At the same time, as many researchers within disability stud-
ies and the sociology of technology would insist, such enablements and con-
straints do not make sense without reference to the social practices and cultural
conventions that cohere to them. The ‘affordances’ of, say, a chair, a post-box
or a cigarette are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextrica-
bly bound with specific, historically variable, ways of life. We therefore need to
better acknowledge what lies beyond the here-and-now timeframe adopted by
most analyses conducted in terms of affordances. Often the only other time-
frame invoked in such analyses is that of evolution, the long process of mutual
attunement between the natural environment and the human sensorium. Yet,
the emergence and ongoing transformation of the made environment, including

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 429

whatever we might mean by ‘culture’, falls between those two temporal frames.
Partly as a result, Gibson’s affordances appear undersocialized and in need of
further socialization (Costal, 1995).
In this article we have attempted a critical exploration of the concept of
‘affordances’ (proposed by Hutchby) as an analytical tool for the social study
of technology. It should be apparent that what we find useful in the concept is
its relational character, something affirmed, but not always faithfully adhered
to, by Gibson or Hutchby. What we consider least useful is the suggestion that
‘affordances’ can be invoked as a way of settling the properties of the techno-
logical artefact in advance of its immersion into social life and interactions.
Since this article has not been conceived as being primarily a theoretical contri-
bution to the ongoing sociological and philosophical debate on technology, we
can only briefly indicate why we think this is not a promising path to take.
Hutchby (2003: 582) proposes that the concept of ‘affordances’ is a much-
needed corrective to the, perhaps endemic, ‘prioritization of representation in
[anti-determinist/anti-essentialist] analyses of given technologies’. Hutchby
implicitly assumes that the technological artefact always comes first and its rep-
resentation afterwards so that the pertinent question is by what means the
material properties of the former constrain the latter (2001a: 447). However, in
what Mumford (1963) calls the ‘neotechnic’ era, the technological artefact and
its representation can be said to have a recursive relationship. The technologi-
cal artefact, in other words, may be equally said to be a materialization of its
representation (a design document, a list of specifications, a blueprint, a
description, etc.). As a temporal sequence, the architectural plan, for instance,
comes before the building and dictates (sometimes with the force of the law
behind it) how it should be built. Even fictional representations of non-existent
artefacts (such as Star Trek’s ‘Replicator’ – see Green et al., 1999) may be
taken up and orient subsequent attempts to realize them (e.g. Kaku, 2008).7
Representation and matter-realization are therefore perhaps best viewed in terms
of different moments in the unfolding biography of the artefact (Bloomfield and
Vurdubakis, 1994).
Following this line of reasoning, we might view ‘representation’ as some-
thing other than a superstructural layer, something that comes to adhere to
the ‘material substratum’ of the technological artefact as Hutchby (2001a:
452) implies. Instead, as in Scarry’s work (1985; see also Cooper, 1993;
Latour, 2002; Mumford, 1963), representation can be said to describe the
ongoing folding(s) of the body and the made world into one another. It is
therefore a process through which the body comes to grant particular affor-
dances to the (made) world and conversely, the world comes to be ‘mirrored’
in the effectivities or action capabilities of the body. ‘Sociality’ and ‘material-
ity’ appear irredeemably entangled with one another. Drawing on this we
might argue that the relationship between ‘sociality’ and ‘materiality’ in tech-
nological artefacts is a Derridean (1976) one of mutual (in)determination and
supplementarity.

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430 Sociology Volume 44 ■ Number 3 ■ June 2010

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Maggie Mort (Sociology, Lancaster University) who com-
mented on an earlier version of the argument presented here. Thanks also to the
various individuals who gave freely of their time and granted access to their homes
as part of fieldwork discussed in this article.

Notes

1 ‘Homo Economicus’ and ‘Homo Sociologicus’ (Dahrendorf, 1968, or for that

matter Garfinkel’s ‘cultural dope’) respectively.
2 ‘If this complex, mysterious, invisible percipient event, happening somewhere
between the eyes and the brain and engaging the entire psyche, could be made
visible, could be lifted out of the body and endowed with an external shape, that
shape would be the shape of a chair which now more fully represents the com-
pleted reversal of perceived-pain-wished-gone’ (Scarry, 1985: 290).
3 The research was carried with approval from Lancaster University’s Research
Ethics committee and the agreement of the sponsoring organization.
4 All names are pseudonyms.
5 See http://www.screenreader.net/, accessed April 2008.
6 For instance, Scarry (1985) discusses how mundane objects can be transformed
into instruments of torture, a process she describes as the un-making of the
world.
7 For instance, the influence of science-fictional ‘models’ (such as Kubrick’s HAL,
1967) on artificial intelligence research is well documented (e.g. Stork, 1997).

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Brian P. Bloomfield

Joined Lancaster University in 1998 where he holds a Chair in Technology and

Organisation in the Department of Organisation, Work & Technology. Previously he
worked in the Management School at UMIST, Manchester. He is currently working on
the role of narrative and social imaginaries in the promotion of, and resistance to,
technoscientific innovations.
Address: Department of Organisation, Work & Technology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

Yvonne Latham

Is a doctoral student in the Centre for the Study of Technology & Organisation (CSTO)
within the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology at Lancaster University.
Her research revolves around conceptions of disability and the potential role of new
technologies in facilitating disabled people’s participation in social life. She is particularly

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 Bodies, technologies and action possibilities Bloomfield et al. 433

interested in how the connections between bodies and subjects, and technologies and
objects can be understood as a social accomplishment.
Address: Department of Organisation, Work & Technology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

Theo Vurdubakis

Is Professor of Organisation and Technology and director of the Centre for the Study
of Technology and Organisation at Lancaster University, UK. His research interests
include the role of technological practices and artefacts in the performance of social
organization.
Address: Department of Organisation, Work & Technology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]

Date submitted April 2009

Date accepted October 2009

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