Call for Chapter-Contributions: Handbook on Architecture + Anthropology

Editors: Marie Stender, Aina Landsverk Hagen, Madlen Kobi, Claus Bech-Danielsen, Ying Zhou, and Ray Lucas
Publisher: Routledge

Architecture and anthropology have always had overlapping interests, but a range of developments in both disciplines makes it more relevant than ever to intersect, overlap, combine or even merge the two disciplines: At the beginning of the 21st century, architecture as a physical product has become a global commodity and many architects today design buildings for different cultural contexts than their own. Anthropologists are increasingly studying social relations “at home”, within their own country or region, focusing on the physical spaces of buildings; offices, homes and public infrastructure that architects are responsible for designing.

We consider architecture as a shorthand for different fields also covering landscape architecture and urbanism among others, while anthropology covers cultural, social and design anthropology.

Architects are confronted with the need to consider the green transition, sustainability, and CO2-emissions into their designs, as the global building construction industry is held responsible for adding to the climate crisis, while anthropologists are facing criticism for upholding neocolonial and non-sustainable societal structures in studying “the colonized other”. A burgeoning postcolonial critique has emerged, questioning the roles of representation, diversity, ethnocentrism, and anthropocentrism in both architecture and anthropology.

Other conflicts, like ethnic, national, or religious clashes manifest themselves in and through the built and social environment, while digitalization and AI is already transforming practices of research and design for both disciplines. In anthropology, the spatial, material, and non-human turns have paved the way for an increasing interest in and need of changing the world, rather than just studying it, while the architectural efforts towards degrowth point towards radical disciplinary renewal in approaching the natural environment with care and solidarity rather than exploitation in mind.

These developments and tensions fuel the need of rethinking and reinventing ways of engaging with our surroundings and exploring new cross-disciplinary approaches together. The Handbook will be structured along the following sections which will address and go beyond the mentioned keywords:

    • METHODS – Historical overlaps and developments of the disciplines, Fieldwork, Mapping, Drawing, Interviews, Observation and Registration
    • PROCESSES – Design, Participation, Experiments, Innovation, Construction skills, Maintenance, Digitalization, Labour, Living Labs, Resistance, Agency
    • USES – Exclusion, Everyday life, Social tensions, Postcolonial transformation, Urban Space, Home, Social mix, Multiculturalism/biocultural diversity
    • ENVIRONMENTS – Climate, Reuse, Energy transition, Ecology, Emissions, Sustainability, Nature, Concrete, Multispecies relationships, Materiality, Care
    • FLOWS –Mobilities, Migrations, Global flows of know-how, capital, goods and people, Cosmopolitan spaces, Remittances, Refugees, Diaspora, Heritageization
    • VISUAL CULTURES – Atmosphere, Art, Aesthetics, Creativity, Senses, Renderings

We are looking for innovative and fresh insights into the relationships between architecture and anthropology. The contributions shall neither represent one nor the other discipline but will make the reader aware of how different perspectives on the built, natural, and social environment can be conjoined. We welcome abstract submissions of around 300 words which describe the scope of the planned chapter and mention the section you would like to contribute to. The chapters can be written by individual authors, in co-authorship or as dialogues between architects and anthropologists. Please make explicit in the abstract in what ways the relationship between architecture and anthropology manifests in your own work.

The Handbook aims to ensure a balance of contributions by young and established academics, by architects and anthropologists, by gender and we are particularly searching for voices from scholars that are based and work beyond European and North American contexts. We also encourage young scholars who have not published yet to submit their abstracts accompanied by a writing sample of their own work.