Abstract
In this essay, we investigate human relationships to Land that are implied by the notion of affordances. Some expressions can be read as supporting a logic of extraction: affordances are aspects of the environment, lying ready to be used, without any responsibility for care or reciprocation from the user of the affordance. Thinking with Indigenous philosophies and creation stories, we explore the possibility of grounding affordances in an alternative logic: the logic of the gift. The offerings of the environment, of which humans are a part, need to be reciprocated by practices of care and gratitude: only when Land is cared for and protected will it continue to offer its affordances.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
We choose here to capitalize Land. Capitalized, this concept encompases not only a material, terrestrial understanding of land but “all the stuff that makes a place a place and not another place, from spirits down to dirt” (Liborion in Harp & Callison, 2021).
- 2.
The term Indigenous refers to communities of people who are of a place; as Melissa Nelson (2008) has written, “we cannot be separated from these places … we become one, literally and metaphorically, with our homelands and territories” (p. 10). The word in English is a product of settler colonialism and distinguishes settlers from those whose Land we/they occupy.
- 3.
While drawing out similarities between different Indigenous philosophies to articulate “the gift logic,” Kuokkanen (2007a) is careful to explain that articulating and learning from these similarities do not diminish the diversity of Indigenous philosophies around the world.
- 4.
Here Indigenous philosophies are taken to mean: ways of being, knowing, and responding that are embedded in story, song, poem, and prayer, and grounded in patterns, processes, and peoples of particular Land (Manning, 2017).
- 5.
There are more relational understandings to be found in the ecological psychology literature as well (Heft, 2001; Van Dijk, 2021). It is an interesting open question to investigate how the notions of relationality relied on in affordance theoretization compared to the notions of relationality in Indigenous philosophies.
- 6.
Donald works with Syilx collaborators, the people of the Land with which she lives and conducts her research. Her ethics and research praxis have been heavily influenced by scholars of Indigenous methodologies, both Syilx and of other Lands, and as a result, she works within an anti-colonial conceptual framework that stems from Syilx priorities for Land and research.
- 7.
Syilx Land is currently occupied by the province of British Columbia in Canada and the state of Washington in the USA, approximately 400 km inland from the Pacific Ocean.
- 8.
We choose to use the word Land for consistency. Country, as quoted, “is the Aboriginal English word which encompasses this vibrant and sentient understanding of space/place which becomes bounded through its interconnectivity. Country and everything it encompasses is an active participant in the world, shaping and creating it” (Bawaka Country et al., 2015, p. 270).
References
Bourke, M., Atkinson, A., & Neale, T. (2020). Putting Country back together: A conversation about collaboration and aboriginal fire management. Postcolonial Studies, 23(4), 546–551.
Bowman, N. (2017). “Our economy walks on the land”: Secwepemc resistance and resilience after the Imperial metals Mt. Polley tailings storage facility breach. Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 44(1), 25–35.
Bruineberg, J. P. (2018). Anticipating affordances: Intentionality in self-organizing brain-body-environment. Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Carroll, C. (2014). Native enclosures: Tribal national parks and the progressive politics of environmental stewardship in Indian Country. Geoforum, 53, 31–40.
Costall, A. (1999). An Iconoclast’s triptych: Edward Reed’s ecological philosophy. Theory & Psychology., 9(3), 411–416.
Country, B., Wright, S., Suchet-Pearson, S., Lloyd, K., Burarrwanga, L., Ganambarr, R., Ganambarr-Stubbs, M., Ganambarr, B., & Maymuru, D. (2015). Working with and learning from country: Decentring human authority. Cultural Geographies, 22(2), 269–283.
Davis, H., & Todd, Z. (2017). On the importance of a date, or decolonizing the Anthropocene. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 16(4), 761–780.
Donald, M. (2019). A shaded understory: Interacting with associated species in Trinidadian cacao agroforestry systems. [Unpublished thesis]. Wageningen University.
Gammage, B. (2011). The biggest estate on earth: How aborigines made Australia. Allen & Unwin.
GEMET. (n.d.). retrieved from: https://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/en/concept/5544.
Gibson, J. (1979). The theory of affordances. In The ecological approach to visual perception (pp. 127–143).
Grego, C. E. (2015). Maybe National Park: Consultation, conservation, and conflict in the Okanagan-Similkameen. BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly, 186, 9–38.
Harp, R., & Callison, C. (2021). Pollution is colonialism: Part 2 (no. 259) [audio podcast episode]. In Media indigena. Interactive Indigenous Insight. https://mediaindigena.libsyn.com/pollution-is-colonialism-part-two-ep-259
Holmes, C., Hunt, S., & Piedalue, A. (2015). Violence, colonialism and space: Towards a decolonizing dialogue. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(2), 539–570.
Heft, H. (2001). Ecological psychology in context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the legacy of WilliamJames’s radical empiricism. Psychology Press.
Justice, D. H. (2018). Why indigenous literatures matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A native narrative. House of Anansi.
Kuokkanen, R. (2007a). Reshaping the university: Responsibility, indigenous epistemes, and the logic of the gift. UBC Press.
Kuokkanen, R. (2007b). The gift logic of indigenous philosophies in the academy. In G. Vaughan (Ed.), Women and the gift economy: A radically different worldview is possible (pp. 71–83). Inanna Publications & Education.
Liboiron, M. (2021). Pollution is colonialism. Duke University Press.
Manning, D. T. (2017). Mnidoo-Worlding: Merleau-Ponty and Anishinaabe philosophical translations [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The University of Western Ontario.
Nelson, M. K. (2008). Original instructions: Indigenous teachings for a sustainable future. Simon and Schuster.
Noonuccal, O., & Noonuccal, K. O. (1988). The rainbow serpent. Meanjin, 47(3), 373–377.
Okanagan Tribal Council. (2017). We are the people: A trilogy of Okanagan legends. Theytus.
Phillips, L. G., & Bunda, T. (2018). Research through, with and as storying.
Rose, D. B. (2005). Indigenous water philosophy in an uncertain land. In From disaster response to risk management (pp. 37–50). Springer.
Shapiro, J., & McNeish, J. A. (2021). Our extractive age: Expressions of violence and resistance. Taylor & Francis.
Strathern, M. (1992). Reproducing the future: Anthropology, kinship and the new reproductive technologies. Manchester University Press.
van Dijk, L. (2021). Psychology in an indeterminate world. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(3), 577–589.
Withagen, R., De Poel, H. J., Araújo, D., & Pepping, G. J. (2012). Affordances can invite behavior: Reconsidering the relationship between affordances and agency. New Ideas in Psychology, 30(2), 250–258.
Wright, A. (2006). Carpentaria. Giramondo.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Donald, M., Bruineberg, J. (2022). Affordances and the Logic of the Gift. In: Djebbara, Z. (eds) Affordances in Everyday Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08629-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08629-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08583-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08629-8
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)