Affordances as Material Communication: How the Spatial Environment Communicates to Organize Cyclists in Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

This article theorizes affordances (possibilities for action in an environment) as organizational communication. Through affordances and the communication of possible actions, organization and organizing can be communicatively constituted. Using the example of cyclists in Copenhagen, Denmark, I show how cyclists are organized as affordances of the spatial infrastructure and therefore communicate. The combination of affordances in Copenhagen represents a spatial grammar that constitutes a particular organizational style. In Copenhagen, this style is a world-class cycling infrastructure that makes biking easy and normal. Affordances describe a type of material communication not yet theorized, but essential for understanding nonhumans in organizational communication.

Keywords:

• Affordances
• Bicycling
• Communicative Constitution of Organizations
• Infrastructure
• Materiality
• Space