Sociology

Copyright 2003 BSA Publications Ltd Volume 37(3): 565580 [0038-0385(200308)37:3;565580;034419] SAGE Publications London,Thousand Oaks, New Delhi

Debate

Technologies,Texts and Possibilities: A Reply to Hutchby

s

Brian Rappert
University of Nottingham

oday many of the most urgent topics of political debate centre on scientic and technological activities. The list of areas where major opportunities and problems are presented is long and varied. Likely to be included in any such listing would be the rise of the new genetics (Kerr and CunninghamBurley, 2000), the spread of internet-based communication (Loader and Hague, 1998), the continued growth in automobile transportation (Plowden and Hillman, 1996) and the possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (and the systems intended to defend against them). Beyond the spotlight cast by the media attention to these high prole areas, vexing questions exist for those attempting to explicate the inter-relation of the social and material worlds. For sociologists concerned with such topics, there are pressing choices about the most appropriate conceptual framework to adopt. In its broadest formulation, discussions about technologies and human conduct can be regarded as an instance of the long-standing issue in philosophy and social sciences regarding object and subject distinctions. Taking a cue from wider trends in the social sciences, many of those concerned with the study of such matters have drawn on constructivist frameworks. For those working under this broad banner, rather than treating the development of technology as a matter of rational calculation and material imperatives, it is taken to be rooted in negotiated and contingent processes where issues of experience and representation play an important role. Hutchby (2001a) provides an overview of some of the recent discussions regarding constructivism and technology. His diagnosis of the eld is that its obsession with discursive practices and interpretations has compromised its ability to speak about the enabling and constraining forces of the material substratum. Scholars have thereby failed to grasp adequately the inter-relation of the technical and the social. The call is made for a shift in analytic focus for the

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sociology of technology: a change in empirical footing (Hutchby, 2001a: 450); this to one that offers a reconciliation between the opposing poles of constructivism and realism (p. 444). In coming to these conclusions, much of Hutchbys attention and criticism is cast on the extreme form of sceptical analysis advocated by Steve Woolgar, Keith Grint, Geoff Cooper and other socalled post-essentialists (see e.g. Grint and Woolgar, 1994, 1997; Woolgar and Cooper, 1999). This approach eschews the notion that technologies have known, essential and inherent properties that account for their use and effects. Post-essentialists advocate treating technology as text', where attention is drawn to practices of writing and reading artefacts. As presented by Hutchby, this text metaphor embodies an unwarranted degree of scepticism and interpretation. He portrays these authors as taking constructivist reasoning to its ultimate (though invalid) conclusion by maintaining that artefacts do not have properties outside of interpretations of them. Woolgar and colleagues are said to implicitly assume technologies are tabulae rasa, where the only limits to the readings given to them derive from the ability of actors to craft persuasive accounts. Representations thus become all important. But as Hutchby points out a number of times, this position does not stand up under scrutiny. An aeroplane is not the same thing as a bridge, a river is not a tree, a tree is not a rivet, and so on. A technology is more than just the sum of related interpretations and negotiations. Interpretations of technology are still interpretations of something and what that something is must be acknowledged. The materiality of artefacts both constrains and enables action and thought. In not wishing to lose sight of technology, though, neither does he want to backtrack into a form of technological determinism. Thus the question arises of how sociologists should analyse material objects. Drawing on the perceptual psychologist James Gibsons (1979) notion of affordance, Hutchby offers a conceptual handle for understanding the technological shaping of sociality and the constraining materiality of artefacts. Affordances refer to those functional and relational aspects of technology that frame but do not determine the possibilities for action in relation to an object. In other words, they are the perceived properties of an object that suggest (but do not determine) how it might be used. So, the surface of an item might afford alternative possibilities (e.g. its walk-on-ability) for particular animals. These affordances are functional and relational properties of all physical objects; users must learn some and they can be designed in. Both shaped and shaping as well as enabling and constraining, for Hutchby affordance amounts to a third way or middle ground between realism and constructivism. The notion both avoids the arbitrariness of the radical constructivist position, with its single-minded view that the discourses surrounding technologies are the only phenomena with any possible sociological (and social) relevance; and to evade the equally unilateral epistemology associated with technological determinism (Hutchby, 2001a: 453). It thus provides a counter to current unhealthy preoccupations in the social studies of science and technology.

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As presented in this way, the merits of the notion of affordance and the need for such a third way would seem self-evident. I wish to contest Hutchbys argument on a variety of inter-related grounds, including: its distinctiveness in relation to the concerns already raised in technology studies; its assessment of post-essentialism; and its ability to place the study of technology on a fruitful and novel line of inquiry. In doing so, reference is made both to his article on affordances (2001a), entitled Technologies, Texts and Affordances, and to his book (2001b), entitled Conversation and Technology. While the concept of affordance might have some value for a circumscribed range of concerns, the critique presented raises a series of key questions about how it is conceived and what it is taken to mean. As will be argued, debates about the appropriateness of conceptual orientations to the study of technology are informed by, and have the potential to inform, tenacious debates in sociology about the relation between scepticism and common sense as well as the place of interpretation in analysis. As these persistent issues are likely to be with sociologists for some time, it is important to think about creative strategies for addressing them. Let us now consider each of the criticisms noted above in turn.

Providing a New Footing?

Hutchby claims the notion of affordance provides a new empirical perspective for sociology of technology, a so-called third way between the unfortunate over-deconstructive tendencies of radical constructivism and the navety of determinism. In this way his proposals are said to offer a distinctive and novel contribution to the sociology of technology and thereby the wider interdisciplinary eld of science and technology studies (STS). This framing can be questioned on the basis of its characterization of the existing literature. Hutchbys proposal is a response to discussions in STS, but one very much orientated around radical post-essentialist authors such as Woolgar and Grint. When seen in relation to the work of other authors, the aim attributed to affordance becomes much less ground breaking in its preoccupation. To substantiate this contention, this section offers a brief overview of discussions in STS. It is limited to the fairly recently emerged sub-area of this eld concerned with social constructivism and technology, wherein post-essentialism is just one position among many others. For the last fteen or so years, self-identied social constructivists have sought to move away from grand theorizing about technology to consider instead the way in which actors actively make sense of, and contribute to, its development. This has entailed establishing empirically grounded models rather than, for instance, treating technology as an autonomous entity (Ellul, 1964). Early writing by constructivists was keen to open up the back box of technology (see e.g. Bijker et al., 1987). Artefacts were not to be bracketed off from social analysis, to be solely explained by reference to technical factors, or to be seen as driven by idealized constructs such as the quest for efciency. Those

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adopting constructivist approaches to the study of technology have tried to introduce elements of the social into explanations of the technical rather than granting the social an all-important standing. In that way they sought to counter many of the perceived deciencies of conventional treatments and provide a space for interpretation, negotiation and politics. Since that initial work, a plethora of different approaches has been promoted under the label of social constructivism. Hutchby acknowledges the diversity of views and debates between those with different positions, but does not consider what these mean for his argument. Much of this research could be said to already position itself between realist and radical constructivist positions. Constructivist authors are more or less willing to acknowledge a space for the socialness of technology. Prominent gures working under the heading of the social construction of technology (SCOT) have drawn on the notion obduracy to say some devices and systems are harder to alter than others based on their materiality. Some socio-technological systems are in a state of closure where the ability to alternatively interpret a technology diminishes. Considering the manner in which obduracy varies depending on the inclusion of actors within the relevant networks or on the material properties of devices is presented as providing an important basis for analysis and intervention (Bijker, 1995). In their desire to underline the material world under consideration, MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999: 18) elected to use the term social shaping rather than social construction. The latter was seen as implying that there was no real world that actors have to contend with. Coming to a similar conclusion but starting from a somewhat different theoretical basis, Akrich suggested that those studying technology consider two vital issues:
The rst has to do with the extent to which the composition of a technical object constrains actants in the way they relate both to the object and to one another. The second concerns the character of these actants and their links, the extent to which they are able to reshape the object, and the various ways in which the object might be used (1992: 206).

At the heart of such examinations of the inter-relation of the technical and the social is the need to reconcile long-standing issues in social theory about actor (or actant) agency and structure. A variety of conceptual tools has been advocated to nd a viable position. So, technology has been portrayed as a boundary object that mediates experiences and representations held by actors (Star, 1988). This mediation is always done through, and in relation to, something, as objects are not open to just any form of interpretation. In trying to nd a language and framework for explaining the inter-relation of the social and the technical, authors such as Pfaffenberger (1992) and more recently Michael (2000) have drawn on Gibsons concept of affordance. They have done so by situating the affordances of an object within a wide context of considerations. Pfaffenberger, for instance, links such properties to contested political representations. For him, while the process of designing and developing a technology may be done consciously or unconsciously to affect the

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distribution of wealth, status or power in society, such effects are only able to come about because of wider activities to create the beliefs and social contexts that legitimate certain interpretations of intentions and attributes of technologies. Since the affordances of any object are various and multiply conceived, attempts must be made to regulate interpretations through symbolic discourse and interaction. Thus, for Pfaffenberger (1992: 282), political intentions, no less than the facticity and hardness of the technologys impact, are themselves constituted and constructed in reciprocal and discursive interaction with technological activities'. Here the attempt is made to apply the technology as text metaphor to questions about users experiences with artefacts and conceptions of its affordances. Pfaffenberger is interested in the way mundane and exotic technologies are appropriated and re-appropriated by groups from the initial intentions of designers or the stated claims made about it. With a similar wide ranging contextualization, Michael (2000) draws on affordances as a way of describing human-nature unity where meaning given to the affordances of everyday, mundane objects is the result of complex social negotiation. A noticeable feature of these more situated descriptions of affordances is that they are less concerned with, or helpful in, establishing the denitive properties of technology in a manner that links expectations, uses and representations that Hutchby seeks. Even the qualied interminglings of the social and the technical given by these authors have not gone without a critical response from those within STS. Vincenti (1991, 1995) calls for constructivists to pay closer attention to the technical constraining of technology and the limits imposed by real-world considerations. So, for instance, scholars may argue that Thomas Edison designed his incandescent lamps to be linked in a circuit and turned on and off one by one in order to imitate and compete with existing gas-lighting systems (i.e. he did it for social reasons). Yet, when one takes into account the properties of materials related to resistance and power, the technical options available at the time and the economic factors involved, it is difcult to see how Edison could have done otherwise. In a similar fashion, no matter how persuasively the patent application is formulated, the laws of thermodynamics expressly prohibit the operation of perpetual motion machines. While authors such as Vincenti still contend that innovation is a heterogeneous and negotiated process where analysts cannot simply appeal to post-event determinations of the success or failure as causal explanations, they also wish to dene limits on what is possible to do with, around, or via the artefact (Hutchby, 2001a: 453). However brief this survey of the literature, it suggests that those in technology studies have long sought to nd the sort of middle ground Hutchby proposes between nave realism and open-ended interpretation. Indeed, retrospectively, most of the constructivist literature could be said to occupy that space from the beginning. Technology has been taken as congured by and conguring, affected by and affecting, as well as shaped and shaping. A key question and matter for disagreement though has been exactly how to articulate the relation between the social and the technical, while not treating the latter as

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simply indeterminate. This is where the conceptual difculties and differences for sociologists begin. If occupying a position between radical constructivism and realism is not particularly novel in itself, Hutchby might still offer a consideration of a novel set of empirical issues. The basis for his new empirical footing becomes clearer in Conversation and Technology (Hutchby, 2001b), than in Technologies, Texts and Affordances. Hutchby draws on the analytical distinction of Button (1990) between establishing what technology is and how people engage with artefacts in their everyday experiences. Constructivists of all persuasion are said to be concerned with the former at the expense of the latter. Hutchby seeks a new empirical footing by suggesting sociologists and others should examine what people do with technologies in everyday life by observing their interactions with them. His concern, one I read as inspired by wider claims in ethnomethodology, is with how people get on in the ordinary world and how devices are involved in mediating experiences. In doing so an explicit call is made to avoid adopting a sceptical approach to technology; instead it should be treated as a stable, predictable and functioning part of the practices of everyday life (Hutchby, 2001b: 198). Hutchby claims that post-essentialists systematically deny the possibility of undertaking this empirical agenda because of their focus on examining what a technology is (p. 32). So, while the novelty of offering accounts between realism and radical constructivism might be somewhat dubious, Hutchby does want to utilize a set of methodological issues that arguably are not key for technology constructivists. The main implications of this section for my argument are twofold. First, once we acknowledge that in and of itself the notion of affordance is not occupying a new position within approaches to technology, we can also revisit and perhaps better understand the value and distinctiveness of the approach advocated by post-essentialists. Second, given the points made about the tenacious character of the relation between social and technical, the question should be asked of how useful Hutchbys conceptualization of affordance is in addressing the empirical topic he highlights. These issues will be addressed respectively in the next two sections.

A Metaphor on a Mission
Hutchby acknowledges some face value benets of treating technology as text'. The metaphor draws attention to the work by designers, promoters or others in crafting the materiality and interpretations of devices (i.e. the writing process), while maintaining a space for alternative appropriations and uses of technology (i.e. the reading process). The major aw according to Hutchby is that in practice the text metaphor reduces technology to a tabula rasa where the only constraints on its interpretation derive from the ability of authors to make persuasive accounts. Despite repeated claims by Grint and Woolgar (1997) that they are not making ontological statements about the status of the material

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world, Hutchby maintains that in effect their presumptions mean that people could do anything they like with technology. Those bored at the ofce could just as easily y to France with a stapler as phone the airlines. It is all the matter of nding the right discursive strategy for reconstituting objects. As such, the post-essentialists are blatantly nonsensical. How can one deny the material reality that is so evidently a constraining part of everyday life? What hope is there of overturning the laws of physics through talk alone? Could the capacities or affordances of a car stereo really be said to be interpreted in the same as way those of an internal combustion engine? As authors such as Kling (1992) have pointed out, guns have a capacity for killing that roses do not. To claim otherwise is to become lost in ones discursive navel. For those not familiar with STS, that such absurd suggestions are even seriously entertained must come as a bit of a surprise. I wish to argue that these characterizations of post-essentialism and the technology as text metaphor are misplaced. To understand the promise of the metaphor, we need to see it in relation to the other approaches in the study of technology mentioned in the previous section. This enables us to differentiate the analysis of Grint and Woolgar from those in the social construction of technology', social shaping and other approaches. As mentioned earlier, many constructivists have tried to reconcile the social and the material by limiting the scope of the former through the stated or unstated notion of closure. In putting forward the notion of technology as text, post-essentialists question the often unexplicated assumptions made about the degree of closure that has taken place regarding, for instance, the effects of technology. This sceptical approach instead contends that what a technology is and what it does are not transparent properties that can be denitively stated. While objects do exist, the way in which we understand them is always subject to negotiation and interpretation. In this sense it might be fair to state that Grint and Woolgar maintain technologies have no effects outside of interpretative constructions of them made by humans (Hutchby, 2001b: 7). However, it is misleading to argue this implies artefacts have no intrinsic properties, and that what they are is a matter for negotiation and persuasive rhetoric (p. 23). Post-essentialists resist adopting conventional assumptions and instead try to be aware of the premises and contingencies underlying denitive characterizations. To talk about the actual characteristics of the technology as if they were known and could simply be agreed upon is problematic. Likewise, trying to adopt a middle ground between relativist and realist positions as entailed by the notion of affordances is tension-ridden because one must struggle against making denitive statements while taking certain things for granted. In other words, post-essentialists take as the topic of their analysis the very process that others rely on as the basis for explanation of technology. The technology as text metaphor enables and forces one to remain thoroughly sceptical about statements regarding technology. As suggested by Grint and Woolgar (1997: 70), social scientists should see how far the metaphor can be applied and what insights come with this. Doing

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so should help question many of the assumptions held by actors and analysts about, for instance, the masculine and feminine qualities of technology (1997: Chapter 4). The application of the technology as text metaphor ghts against the arbitrary ending of debates about technology in order to consider what space this opens for analysis, criticism and action (see e.g. Woolgar and Cooper, 1999). In this way, Hutchbys claim that technology is inappropriately treated as a tabula rasa in post-essentialism misses the point. Like any line of analysis, were this pursued dogmatically, it might entail considerable limitations. Yet, Woolgar has been especially quick to reexively point out the essentialist assumptions that underlie his analysis and the need to question the basis of his claims (Woolgar, 1988; 1993). As a counter to the presumptions surrounding the status of closure in the study of technology, post-essentialism stresses the possibility for questioning widely held assumptions. This uid approach can then inform discussions about the relation between technology, politics and truth. The merits of Hutchbys claim that post-essentialists and constructivists distract attention from the most pressing issues regarding how technologies are implicated in inter-subjective accomplishments obviously depends what one takes to be the priorities of the day. In keeping with this framing of the debate, for instance, it is possible to interpret discussions about the merits of post-essentialist accounts as an instance of more general debates about the relation between scepticism and analysis. Does scepticism imply that common sense reasoning is wrong or misguided (as Hutchby seems to imply), or instead does it advise that sociologists should seek to offer types of accounts? Of course, in everyday life people use forms of common sense reasoning to think about technology. It is not necessary to draw on the metaphor of technology as text to address a range of issues about how actors are able to be competent at certain tasks. Hutchbys critique of post-essentialism as materially blind is off the mark because it assumes a particular relationship between studying common sense reasoning and conducting philosophical scepticism, i.e. that these are necessarily distinct tasks. This I presume stems from wider debates between ethnomethodology and other forms of sociology. As ethnomethodologists Sharrock and Anderson (1991: 51) argue, it is a serious mistake to set philosophical skepticism on all fours and head to head with common sense understandings as though one straightforwardly and directly challenged the other. People nd a way of getting through the world, whether it is in suggesting the best restaurant in town or knowing which utensils to use for a given dish once there. Sharrock and Anderson, like Hutchby, stress the importance of accounting for everyday, locally produced interaction instead of adopting conventional sociological or philosophical modes of sceptical theorizing. My reading of Woolgar and other post-essentialists is that, in effect, they seek to break this distinction down. The useability trials that Hutchby criticises, for instance, can be portrayed in this light (see below). The post-essentialist approach could be interpreted as an attempt to take the dualism between common sense reasoning and scepticism (in this case about technology) as a topic of analysis to be studied rather than as a resource.

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Post-essentialists are thus seeking to understand how sociologists can keep a space open for acknowledging the importance of interpretation and negotiation in claims about technology in a way Hutchbys usage of affordance does not (see later).

Problematics of the Third Way

Such considerations about post-essentialism in turn draw attention to the possible insights of Hutchbys conceptualization of affordance. When it comes to the examination of technology, what does affordance offer sociologists and others? How can it help overcome difculties faced in research? What might be lost in such pursuits? I want to argue that under critical (dare I say sceptical) scrutiny the notion of affordance is found wanting: it generates noncontrovertible claims that border on the banal or unhelpful; it closes down debates in often arbitrary ways when they could be usefully opened up; it relies on a series of unstated shared agreements; and it fails to provide a place for critical self-examination. Let us consider each of these in turn.

Non-controvertible Claims
A striking feature of the examples given of the application of affordance in Hutchbys article (2001a) is that they are unlikely to be disputed because they are simple. A rock affords shelter for a reptile, a telephone enables communication over a distance in a way a fruit machine does not, a river affords drinking for a buffalo, and certain surfaces are more walkable than others for particular animals. While such statements are generally supported by everyday experiences, they seemingly also offer limited analytical insight. Little indication is given outside such types of examples of how affordances could help understand the relation between technical decisions, representations and uses of technology. As Hutchby indicates, his article Technologies, Texts and Affordances (2001a) merely makes an overall case for affordances. Those in search of more substantial examples are referred to his book Conversation and Technology (2001b). While the background theoretical discussion of affordances are nearly identical in both publications, further applications of the perspectives are given in the book. As stated earlier, this is done by considering how technology mediates the structure of conversation. Given this agenda, how is the notion of affordance drawn on? The most sustained example of this in Hutchby (2001b) is for the case of the telephone (see Chapters 5 & 6). Hutchbys main concern is whether the structure of telephone talk is different from that of face-to-face conversation. So, how do individuals do telephone talk? His claim for distinctiveness consists of a series of highly qualied and situational assertions about the importance of telephones for issues such as the structure of conversation openings and the identity of participants (e.g. caller, called or gatekeeper). For instance, in some situations the number of rings that take place before a caller

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picks up the phone can lead to particular lines of conversations that would not take place in face-to-face interaction. Situational standards of what constitutes too many or too few rings might lead caller and called to discuss the reasons for the phone being picked up when it was. Hutchby attributes this to the affordances of the telephone to summon by mechanical means rather than the sorts of processes that occur in face-to-face conversation. Two further points can be made about the analysis in Conversation and Technology. First, it is concerned with a highly limited set of issues regarding the place of telephones in society. Questions about telephones and identity, for instance, are considered mainly as they relate to internal roles in actual conversations. Such issues are important for those in conversation analysis and elsewhere, but they should not detract from the legitimacy of other approaches to technology. Second, the notion of affordance is not much help in elaborating the implications of technology or the inter-relatedness of the technology and the social. In the end, little more is stated than that devices have situationally dened properties. Hutchby (2001b: 27) acknowledges the affordances of an object are not determined or even nite, since they only emerge in the context of material encounters between actors and objects. As a result, the term is used to refer to the abstract overall capabilities of devices rather than relating the term to specic products and related consequences. For instance, the affordances of the telephone are described, but only in the broadest sense that these objects afford distanced communication but do not allow the same ranges of interactional cues as face-to-face conversation. The term becomes little more than a place holder for representing much more complicated matters about how and to what extent technologies could be said to constrain, enable, facilitate or resist certain actions and interpretations. The term may highlight certain general taken-forgranted properties of technology that some individuals draw on in their daily interactional accomplishments, but after being stated in a bald manner it has to give way to the difcult processes of elaborating what those properties mean. If the purpose of affordance is merely to ag the importance of the material world, then its utility is questionable because, as discussed in an earlier section, this has not been under dispute in STS.

Closes Down Debates

As deployed by Hutchby, affordance is presented as a concept for resolving discussions about technology by appealing to its given (albeit relational) properties. Returning to the main thread of argument in this section, the second limitation of affordance is that it offers little scope for opening up disagreements about the attributes of technology. How are we as sociologists to explain how or why a particular technology is made sense of and utilized by actors? The general response on offer seems to be Well, because the technology affords it. Of course, it would be unwise to suggest that scholars should always seek to emphasize indeterminacy. However, as a general methodological aim, many

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sociologists refrain from restricting the scope for interpretations given that other actors are often so committed to doing so. An approach not able to acknowledge differences is going to be of limited value for those studying technology. This becomes more obvious when the concept of affordance is deployed outside the circumscribed type of issues Hutchby mentions and is instead considered in relation to areas where disagreement and complexity exist. For instance, in examining discussions within an organization about the relative merits of different information systems and strategies for adopting them, it makes little sense for sociologists to appeal to affordances to explain such decisions. What a technology affords (e.g. by way of efciency improvements or its usability whatever these mean) is the thing under question. The notion of affordance is going to be of limited utility for many pressing concerns today because in such situations the constraining and enabling of technology are unclear or contested. Decisions about technology are often taken in situations of alternative assessments and uncertainty where a complex range of issues comes into play. While it seems unlikely that a high street store would requisition a set of fruit machines to handle its communication requirements, neither does this offer much help in explicating how choices are made about technology and how actors attribute characteristics. Although attention to the simple and fairly uncontestable affordances of technology might limit the range of possible interpretations given to a particular device (so as not confuse fruit machines and telephones), presumably not all unexcluded interpretations are equally viable characteristics. Thus even after limiting the range of interpretations through drawing on affordances, one is still left with determining how to identify the actual constraining and enabling features among those identied by social actors. The notion of affordance in itself does not help out with the hard work of elaborating the relation between technical and the social when that is the matter that actors and analysts are struggling with. As mentioned earlier, Hutchbys use of affordances treats the properties of technology as a resource to be drawn upon, rather than a more ethnomethodologically inspired approach of taking these properties as a topic of analysis. It is in this vein that he reinterprets Grint and Woolgars account of the usability trials of a computer (Hutchby, 2001a: 4513). In the trial one user and various company representatives pondered over how to connect a printer to a new computer when the printer lead was tted for a previous model. Grint and Woolgar interpreted the ensuing deliberations of the participants in terms of the uncertainties experienced at the time where questions over who had the authority to speak for the computer system loomed large. In doing so, their analysis can be interpreted as an attempt to break down the distinction between what technology is (i.e. mere representation) and how people engage with devices (i.e. the world of everyday practice). Hutchby instead suggested the proper way to interpret the situation was that the plug did not afford plugging in. Following this empirical agenda, he advocates analysts should nd out how people make

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such assessments. Irrespective of the relative merits of Grint and Woolgars and Hutchbys accounts of the situation, following the latters suggestion does not seem to offer much general insight into how to study technology when there are signicant disagreements about it.

Unstated Shared Agreements

The related and third limitation of the notion of affordance is that it relies on a series of prerequisite but often unstated shared agreements between actors. The closure of debates depends on marshalling a mutual reference frame for technology. Gibson acknowledges this, though Hutchby does not elaborate its implications. In describing his understanding of affordance and differentiating it from the earlier work of the cognitive psychologist Koffka, Gibson (1979: 139) stated that in considering the affordances of a postbox:
For Koffka it was the phenomenal postbox that invited letter-mailing, not the physical postbox. But this duality is pernicious. I prefer to say that the real postbox (the only one) affords letter-mailing to a letter-writing human in a community with a postal system [emphases in the original].

In the case of understanding what a postbox affords, one can draw on takenfor-granted assumptions and cultural conventions in a relatively unproblematic way. Few in Britain, for instance, would be unfamiliar with the purpose of these red boxes dotted throughout the country. An American visitor searching for big blue boxes on the kerb side might nd recognizing the British ones somewhat difcult, but by and large many people in the UK are likely to share Gibsons claims that in general a postbox (once accurately identied) affords lettermailing. Those unfamiliar with a postal system including postbox structure, however, are left out of the story. In a similar fashion, Norman (1990) provides a splendid account of how the design of everyday objects affords particular uses, given certain shared assumptions about the purpose of technology. So, at bars across doors suggest they should be pushed rather than pulled. The way in which the bar is congured might further suggest whether one should apply force on the right or the left side of the door to open it. The term affordance here provides a convenient label for a host of psychological processes cued in by material possibilities whereby ordinary competencies are acted out and people make sense of the design of devices. In the case of doors and postboxes, concern for those without a shared understanding of such devices might be minimal. Beyond such relatively straightforward (though not unimportant) cases though, there are pressing issues about whether and when actors share the same reference frame. Take the issue of risk assessment, a topic of much concern in STS. Vaughan (1996), for instance, provided a highly provocative historical and sociological account of the decision-making process behind the launch of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Rather than interpreting the event in terms of the simple story aired

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for public consumption (wherein NASA and corporate ofcials pressed for a launch against known dangers due to the affordances of materials in cold weather conditions), she instead examines how alternative risk assessments were embedded within particular organizational and historical settings and how these developed over time. Individuals were operating in situations of uncertainty where the affordances of materials in complex systems become known only partially and situationally. The interpretation of technical information varied over time and safety monitoring standards once thought unacceptable gradually became normalized. It was only after the tragedy that the signals surrounding O-ring failure were re-interpreted coherently to show the potential for disaster should have been identied. In other words, the managers and engineers involved did not share the same reference frame or world view as others outside the situation. Beyond such exotic cases, sociological studies have given ample reason to suggest fundamental shared assumptions cannot be taken for granted across and within expert/lay, insider/outsider, male/female, manager/worker and other distinctions (see e.g. Nelkin 1995). Perhaps in focusing on contested activities, sociologists of technology have an unhealthy set of preoccupations, but as long as these are legitimate topics of analysis the question remains of how analysts should orientate themselves to claims and counterclaims.

Critical Self-examination
The fourth and nal limitation of Hutchbys notion of affordances is that in treating affordances as factors to be evoked as explanations rather than topics of analysis, there appears to be little scope for critical reexive examination about their status. The act of labelling something as an affordance is a way of taking for granted what are considered to be taken for granted properties of technology. As I have tried to suggest throughout the preceding discussion, what these properties are and what they are taken to imply is a matter in which there is considerable room for alternative assessment. This then raises the question of how we as analysts orientate ourselves to claims about technology. Should sociologists try to determine which descriptions of the affordances of technology are actually correct and simply consider others as misrepresentations? Is there instead a need to be able to think about the ways in which representations are mobilized and contestable? One way of playfully illustrating the importance of this issue while drawing on points made throughout this article is by asking what Hutchbys notion of affordance affords. Presumably a good starting point to look for an answer to this question is this article. As in Hutchbys treatment of technology, this article has a variety of features for constraining the relation between it and the reader. He has devised a certain content and adopted a style of writing to convey a particular message. My reply is in turn a response to his argument. This article is certainly an interpretation of something, where certain constraints exist

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regarding the range of interpretations possible. Hutchby and I will both agree his text does not focus on the merits of 15th-century French royal court gossip. Beyond such banal agreements (or stated more forcefully, when it matters), we are likely to disagree with each others assessments in important respects. Hutchby will no doubt contend that I have misread his argument. And indeed, there are reasons for believing this is a possibility. The preceding characterization of affordance relied on rather essentialistic assumptions and denitive statements about what it meant. Hutchby and others utilizing the notion are likely to dispute my characterizations and say that his use of affordance actually affords something different from that claimed by me. While an in-depth correspondence between us is likely to clarify some areas, it seems likely that key disagreements will remain. Who is right and wrong is ultimately a matter for the reader to decide. There are important questions about how we as sociologists orientate ourselves to claims and counter-claims about objects and how these are implicated in practices. Do we offer up accounts that attempt to enact closure or acknowledge the pervasive problems of reading and writing the material world? Sceptical accounts such as that of Grint and Woolgar acknowledge and indeed take as a central concern the possibilities for alternative assessments of technologies and texts and the need to be sensitive to attempts at resolving discussions by appeals to material properties. Little room for such critical reection is offered by the discussion given of affordances. This difculty of asking what affordance affords illustrates the problematics of appealing to denitive (however relationally dened) properties of rocks, fruit machines or texts.

Conclusion
The preceding critique of Hutchbys position has taken much of its starting point from the question of what sociologists might ask from their conceptual models in studying technology, whether this is a means of resolving the properties of devices or a way of becoming sensitive to disputes and negotiations. Although in discussing the notion of affordance Hutchby highlights important issues surrounding how individuals make practical sense of technologies, it has been argued that this use of the concept of affordance in itself suffers from many limitations. Further, it has been maintained that the sceptical line of enquiry suggested by post-essentialism does provide a valuable basis of analysis. At a more general level, this article has sought to portray differences in orientations to technology as stemming from wider commitments in sociology, in particular those of ethnomethodologists and more conventional theorists. For this reason, the particular debate about technology is likely to be intractable, but also it is one that offers a good deal of potential for clarifying commitments and implications of forms of analysis.

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Acknowledgements
A version of this article was presented at the Science and Technology Studies Unit (The University of York) on 19 July 2001. My particular thanks to Derrol Palmer, Paul Rosen and three anonymous reviewers for the comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Note
1 My thanks to an anonymous referee for forcing me to clarify the muddled ideas previously expressed in this paragraph.

References
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Plowden. S. and M. Hillman (1996) Speed Control and Transport Policy. London: PSI Publishing. Sharrock, W. and B. Anderson (1991) Epistemology: Professional Scepticism, in G. Button (ed.) Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Star, S.L. (1988) The Structure of Ill-structured Solutions, in M. Huhns and L. Gassser (eds) Distributed Articial Intelligence. Menlo Park, CA: Morgan Kauffman. Vaughan, D. (1996) The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. London: University of Chicago Press. Vincenti, W. (1991) The Scope for Social Impact in Engineering Outcomes', Social Studies of Science 21: 76167. Vincenti, W. (1995) The Technical Shaping of Technology, Social Studies of Science 25: 55374. Woolgar, S. (ed.) (1988) Knowledge and Reexivity. London: Sage. Woolgar, S. (1993) Whats at Stake in the Sociology of Technology', Science, Technology, and Human Values 18(4): 5239. Woolgar, S. and G. Cooper (1999) Do Artefacts Have Ambivalence?: Moses Bridges, Winners Bridges and other Urban Legends in S&TS', Social Studies of Science 29(2): 43345.

Brian Rappert
Is a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham. In autumn 2003 he will take up a lectureship at the University of Exeter. Address: Department of Sociology, School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies, University of Exeter EX4 4RJ. E-mail: brian.rappert@nottingham.ac.uk