Enactive approach to social interactions in religious media ecologies

Abstract

In this article we examine the role of the body in constituting specific social interactions via religious media ecologies from the perspective of the enactive embodied cognition. Religious media ecologies give affordances for conversation and interaction which amplify not only religious but also social beliefs and turn subjective judgements into an intersubjective reality. Hence, despite the traditional emphasis on rational, verbal forms of social interaction, we consider the human body to be something of a cognitive pattern or map, representing important social senses and relations. Thematizing the proximity between embodied cognition and religious media ecologies can bring together philosophy and sociology, while addressing a range of prominent thinkers in an original way.