How could the paradigm shift towards enactive embodied cognitive
science have implications for society and politics? Translating insights form
enactive embodied cognitive science into ways of dealing with real-life issues
is an important challenge. This paper focuses of the urgent societal issue of
social cohesion, which is crucial in our increasingly segregated and polarized
Western societies. We use Rietveld’s (2016) philosophical Skilled Intentionality
Framework and work by the multidisciplinary studio RAAAF to extend Lambros
Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory (2013) to the social domain. How
could a landscape of social affordances generate change in the behavioral
patterns of people from different socio-cultural backgrounds? RAAAF is current-
ly imagining and planning an ambitious intervention in the public domain that
could really change existing socio-cultural practices and aims to contribute to
social cohesion. An animation film it made introduces a landscape of social
affordances. We will present and discuss this Trusted Strangers animation film,
which is a thinking model for new public domain all over the world. Tha
animation film visualizes how a well-designed landscape of social affordances
could invite all sorts of interactions between people from different socio-cultural
backgrounds.

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• Trusted strangers: social affordances for social cohesion