Ecologies of gesture

This chapter presents a heuristic of ways in which hand-gestures participate in communicative interaction. Rather than conceiving gesture as part of language, an ecological perspective is proposed, and gestures are examined both in relation to sequences of social actions and to the ecological context. This broader account of gesture requires a different conception of the human body than is commonly presupposed by researchers of “nonverbal communication”: a model of the body not as an instrument of expression, but as a skilled (knowing) inhabitant of worlds.

• Affiliations: 1: The University of Texas at Austin