Number Concepts Are Constructed through Material Engagement: A Reply to Sutliff, Read, and Everett

I respond to three responses to my 2015 Current Anthropology article, “Numerosity Structures the Expression of Quantity in Lexical Numbers and Grammatical Number.” This study examined the categorical and geographical distribution of lexical numbers, also known as counting numbers, and grammatical number, the ability to linguistically distinguish singular and plural. Both these features of language conform to the perceptual experience of quantity, which consists of subitization, the ability to rapidly and unambiguously identify one, two, and three, and magnitude appreciation, the ability to appreciate bigger and smaller in the numerical quantity of groups when the difference lies above a threshold of noticeability. My reply to Sutliff disagrees with her contention that mathematical ideas are mentally innate on the grounds that this ignores their explicit construction through the interaction of human psychological, physiological, and behavioral abilities with materiality. My reply to Read expands on the idea that language obscures cross-cultural conceptual variability in number concepts because everything that translates as “three” does not necessarily have the same numerical properties. Finally, my reply to Everett notes that investigating numerical origins means discarding the deeply entrenched assumption of linguistic primacy on the grounds that material forms make numerical intuitions tangible, visible, and manipulable in ways that language cannot and, moreover, provide an alinguistic bootstrap mechanism that accounts for the emergence of both concepts of number and words for the concepts.

The ‘Lieutenants’ of Coaching: How Materiality Shapes Coach Developers’ Practices

One might assume that sport coaches are experts in coaching relationally as they do, after all, have to consider how their lieutenants work together in any given practice. If true, then coach developers, who coach the coaches, might be thought of as superior experts in relational provision. If also true, then a relational inquiry into coach education programmes is necessary for conceptualising learning. But previous conceptualisations of learning have neither considered relational analyses nor viewed learning as something that is not derivative from the coach. In this article, I examine how materials participate in and the ways materiality shapes two coach developers’ practices. Methodologically, I draw inspiration from actor-network theory, which is a sociomaterial approach that focuses on the relations of humans and nonhumans in practices. Methods include the ‘interview to the double’ ( Nicolini 2009 ), followed by observations during two level one coach education programmes: children and youth. Two vignettes of cones and the CD-ROM describe how social and material relations come together and shape coach developers’ practices in surprising and unexpected ways. The coach developers grappled with their ‘educator’ role so that coaches were better prepared to articulate the materiality of practices. Based on my analysis, I conclude by making a case for a material engagement with coach development.

Semióticas cognitivas y posthumanismo

Este artículo explora los avances en semiótica y ciencias cognitivas. En particular, se centra en los enfoques recientes denominados “cognición extendida” y “Teorías de acoplamiento material” –“Material Engagement Theory”– para situarlos en relación al poshumanismo. El objetivo final es abordar la cuestión fundamental de la agencia material no humana en el Antropoceno desde una perspectiva semiótica.

Beat Machine: Embracing the Creative Limitations and Opportunities of Low-Cost Computers

The Beat Machine is a handheld music synthesizer and sequencer. The authors discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individuation, a framework for relating material engagement to digital design and fabrication. In reflecting on the design and making of the Beat Machine the authors connect this framework with more established notions of creative interaction and the affordances of digital media.

Motorcycling in a Repair Society: A Maintenance and Repair–Centered Approach to Automobility

In a departure from car-centered analyses of the automobility systems, this article highlights the importance of motorcycles and motorcycling in the mobility practices of socialist countries. For at least half of the existence of socialist mobility systems, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, there were more motorcycles on the roads than cars. Motorcycling was important in commuting, for the mobility of lower-ranking administrative personnel in the countryside, and for mass tourism and leisure. Although in that era maintenance and repair practices were equally central to motorcycling and car-driving, the distinction between user-owner and mechanic was much more fluid in the case of motorcyclists. As a result, the centrality of maintenance and repair to socialist-era motorcycling offers an ideal opportunity to enrich current interdisciplinary conversations about breakdown, maintenance, and repair. Building on the car-centered research into maintenance and repair activities, I add additional material on the nature, types, and complexity of such practices for motorcycling. I outline nine forms of material engagement with motorcycles that reference, but transcend, the current dichotomies between necessity and pleasure, the formal and the informal, the technical and the aesthetic, and the repair of existing objects and the creation of new ones.

Beat Machine: Embracing the creative limitations and opportunities of low-cost computers

The Beat Machine is a hand-held music synthesizer and sequencer. We discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individuation, a framework for relating material engagement to digital design and fabrication. In reflecting on the design and making of the Beat Machine we connect this framework with more established notions of creative interaction and the affordances of digital media.