ABSTRACT
Relational theories understand affordances as cutting across dualities of knower and known, inner and outer, subject and object, and animal and environment. Anthony Chemero has for instance proposed to understand affordances as relations between the abilities animals embody and situations in the world. In work with Erik Rietveld, I have defined affordances in relation to the abilities available in a form of life—the relatively stable and regular pattern of activity within a group, population, or community of animals. I have organized the questions we have been asked to address for this volume around a more overarching question of the place of social life in a theory of what affordances are. By “social life” I mean to refer to the regular, relatively stable patterns of activity that take place in the interaction between animals. The sociomaterial theory argues that the materiality of affordances is not that of a physical object but is instead best conceived of as a “sociomateriality” in which social and material reality are inseparably intertwined.
