Affordances in Interaction: The Case of Aikido

Michael Kimmel,Christian R Rogler

doi:10.1080/10407413.2017.1409589

Abstract

ABSTRACTOur title can be read as trivially true, namely, that perceived affordances shape real-time interaction dynamics. A less trivial reading suggests that affordances themselves interact in a shared dyadic field, such that the number and quality of As and Bs affordances are dynamically coupled with bidirectional causality. In dance, martial arts, or team sports agents strategically comodulate each other's affordances while pursuing their aims. In Aikido, where agents try to break their opponents' balance, this trade-off globally approximates a zero-sum game—the better A's affordances are, the lousier B's affordances get. The agents are subject to ceaseless cross-causation in this shared field. They seek to obstruct their opponents' options while strategically enabling, augmenting, and sculpting their own by employing subtle perceptual manipulation skills, redirecting force, brinkmanship, and switching techniques opportunistically. To overcome static views, we conceptualize affordances as cascading and having fluid onsets; we also identify nested affordances in goal hierarchies and describe a spectrum of affordance functions. Ultimately, we suggest rethinking the ontology of affordances as being sensitive to dynamic engagements, hence defined relative to interpersonal emergence.

Highlights

This article applies the theory of affordances to settings of coregulative interaction
We propose to think through the lens of interaction dynamics when two people strategically influence or change each other’s affordances in real time, focusing on how antagonistic aims put their stamp on this
Small, dynamically introduced variations of a perceptual parameter can prompt the emergence of a novel mode of action to existing ones and increase task entropy (Hristovski et al, 2006)

Summary

Introduction

This article applies the theory of affordances to settings of coregulative interaction. Ethnographic approaches remind us that affordances are task and skill related (Costall, 2012; Ingold, 2000; Kimmel, 2012) and embedded in a world of social practice (Rietveld & Kiverstein, 2014; van Dijk & Rietveld, 2017) too, including wider behavior settings (Heft, 2001, 2007), embedding values and interests (Hodges, 2009), and alternative choices contained within the wider “affordance landscape” (Bruineberg & Rietveld 2014) What complexities this implies for the empirical study and descriptive terminology of a sophisticated skill domain becomes apparent in our case study. Small, dynamically introduced variations of a perceptual parameter can prompt the emergence of a novel mode of action (i.e., a new affordance) to existing ones and increase task entropy (Hristovski et al, 2006) This brings us to our central theme: which affordances arise is not predictable alone from the combination of agent-side variables such a body size, strength, and skill or simple environmental variables. Aikido (“the way of harmonizing energy”) is a soft martial art practiced worldwide; it was originally developed and taught in Japan by Morihei Ueshiba from the 1920s onward

Aims and structure

Conclusion