Making Home(s) in Displacement

Making Home(s) in Displacement critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material, and architectural perspective. Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, one which intrinsically relates to the fabrication of the built environment worldwide. Conceptually the book is divided along four spatial sites, referred to as camp, shelter, city, and house, which are approached with a multitude of perspectives ranging from urban planning and architecture to anthropology, geography, philosophy, gender studies, and urban history, all with a common focus on space and spatiality. By articulating everyday homemaking experiences of migrants and refugees as spatial practices in a variety of geopolitical and historical contexts, this edited volume adds a novel perspective to the existing interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of home and displacement. It equally intends to broaden the canon of architectural histories and theories by including migrants' and refugees' spatial agencies and place-making practices to its annals. By highlighting the political in the spatial, and vice versa, this volume sets out to decentralise and decolonise current definitions of home and displacement, striving for a more pluralistic outlook on the idea of home.

Literary and cultural (re)productions of a utopian island: Performative geographies of colonial Shamian, Guangzhou in the latter half of the 19th century

In the second half of the 19th century, Shamian was established and developed as a colonial island enclave in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. Simultaneously, literary and cultural imaginations, depictions, and narrations of the place produced a discourse of Shamian as a utopian island: geographically insular and bounded, environmentally beautiful and peaceful, socially exclusive and harmonious, and technologically progressive and advantageous. This paper examines contemporaneous (predominantly English) literary and cultural representations of Shamian as a colonial utopia and their interrelations with the island’s spatial formation and evolution. These texts (primarily written and pictorial descriptive, non-fictional accounts) reflected the spatial reality but also promoted spatial practices that reinforced the physical utopian island. This process exemplifies the theories of performative geographies in island studies and intertextuality in geocriticism, showing how a place’s spatial representations and reality are mutually constructed. Adopting a conceptual model of intertextual performative geographies, this paper investigates the dynamic interplay of these literary and cultural texts with the spatial reality, arguing that literary and cultural representations of Shamian (re)produced the colonial enclave as a utopian island, both conceptually and practically.

Posizionamenti transfemministi. Saperi situati e pratiche spaziali nel movimento Non Una di Meno

The aim of this paper is to analyse, through the toolbox of gender geography, the methodology of positionality and situated knowledge. The article examines some spatial practices of the transfeminist movement Non Una di Meno that involve us both as researchers and activists. The different forms of territorialisation and ways of “doing with” the space of the movement, are here presented through the specific cases of the demonstrations organised during the Covid-19 pandemic on the 25th of November 2020 and 8th March 2021. This enables us to present the methodology of positionality, and to analyse how feminist spatial practices can be the object of research and vice versa.

Television and Material Culture: Mediating the Temporal and Consumerist Practices in Pre-liberalised Kerala

The introduction of television in Kerala was an event marked by the encounter between spatial practices, discursive structures and visual paradigms. As a result, it becomes important to contextualise television’s presence in Kerala in the socio-economic conditions that defined the region in and around the time when television was introduced. This would provide some seminal cues about the mutual imbrications between television and its politico-discursive context. The present paper tries to look into the ways in which television fashioned new spatio-temporal practices and embodied various consumerist tendencies in pre-liberalised Kerala to argue that television is an artifact grounded in the region’s cultural values and material aspirations. The first section looks at how television-viewing and the socialities formed around the act were ‘timed’ by television. In the second section, the paper studies the popular advertising strategies employed to market television as a ‘tamed’ object that is representative of the consumerist aspirations that defined the region.

Gendering and Spatializing the New Urban Space: A Study on Working Women in the City of Dhaka, Bangladesh

This paper will explain the gendering and spatializing of Dhaka city that unearths the interaction between the new urban public space and women’s spatial practices. These women are working in different shopping malls, fashion houses and beauty parlours of the city which was impossible for them few decades ago. This study has replicated the theoretical position of Lefebvre (1991) on production of space and Harvey (1989) on spatial practices. Tonkiss’s (2005) ‘Geography of gender’ has been used to describe the gendering and spatializing the new urban space of Dhaka. In short, the study has collected data using survey method and supplemented the quantitative findings with qualitative data by some unique and informative case studies. It reveals that the new urban space of Dhaka has been produced by increasing consumerism and the rise of private service sectors where huge numbers of women are working nowadays. It further exposes that the empowerment of women and simultaneously the unemployment of men is contributing to unleashing traditional patriarchy from being confined to domestic spheres. Men are now harassing women in public place more than ever before to hold up their masculinity symbolically. Consequently, women’s free movement in the public space is being restricted by their perception and experience of harassment by certain male population of the city and by women’s protective negotiation of the space. The paper thus argues that harassment against women in the public space in Dhaka has recently been connected to increasing participation of women in private service sectors during the recent neoliberal transformations. Social Science Review, Vol. 37(2), Dec 2020 Page 125-144

Architecture's Tightrope - Investigating an Alternative Trajectory for Critical Architecture: Critical Spatial Practices and a Polycontextual Engagement with an Urban Thick Edge Condition

<p>This thesis investigation engages two contemporary interrelated problems – one theoretical and one practical – both of which are interrogated, interwoven and tested through a critical lens. The theoretical context framing the design-research reconsiders the vitality of ‘critical architecture’ in relation to contemporary discourse, in particular, the so-called ‘crisis of criticality’ and the implications of this ideological landscape within the built environment. Foregrounding a position to test this theoretical framing, the practical context of the design-research is distinctly urban – engaging one of the contemporary negative outcomes of rapid urbanisation. The practical problem investigates the ‘thick edges’ (places of singular and/or impermeable identities) that manifest around and below new urban motorway infrastructural developments, a condition that creates barriers to cultural, social and spatial flows between communities in urban settings. This thesis argues that by engaging with the complex and multiple cultural conditions of urban sites, the rigidity and singular nature of these impermeable thick edge spaces can be opened to diverse flows relating to multiple contexts. Through processes of design intervention, the thesis proposes a ‘polycontextual’ approach to introduce flows of wider contextual dimensions within an urban site – promoting architectural solutions that blur, fray and punctuate thick edges by developing them as threshold conditions between adjacencies. The theoretical problem analyses the limitations of both the autonomous and post-critical positions; this thesis argues that an alternative trajectory for a contemporary critical architecture has emerged, one that may be used as a theoretical framework for resolving urban thick edge conditions. Jane Rendell, Kim Dovey and Murray Fraser reveal a trajectory to shift architectural practices towards positive and flexible modes of production whilst simultaneously opposing the insufficient positions of the post-critical. They posit that architecture remains an inherently cultural proposition – created through constructive ‘relays’ that can mediate between theory and design – elucidating strategies of resistance through an engagement with practices that are both critical and spatial. Jane Rendell further argues that strategies for such ‘critical spatial practices’ can be elucidated through an examination of processes that are: site-specific, socio-spatial, and temporal. Adopting these three categories as the theoretical framework of this thesis focuses the design-research, implicating critical spatial practices as a contemporary and alternative position for critical architectural production - providing a framework for positive and critical positions in current discourse. In response to this two-fold investigation, the thesis tests a synthesis of critical spatial practices and a polycontextual approach through strategic designresearch propositions. Architecture’s Tightrope proposes a multifunctional events facility that permanently supports the New Zealand International Arts Festival, and the structuration of a dynamic, relational and non-deterministic public space. The primary aims of this thesis are: to test a contemporary critically engendered framework for architectural design-research that is both culturally and formally negotiated; and to investigate the potential for this framework to invert the negative conditions of urban thick edges through an engagement with multiple contexts.</p>

Architecture's Tightrope - Investigating an Alternative Trajectory for Critical Architecture: Critical Spatial Practices and a Polycontextual Engagement with an Urban Thick Edge Condition

<p>This thesis investigation engages two contemporary interrelated problems – one theoretical and one practical – both of which are interrogated, interwoven and tested through a critical lens. The theoretical context framing the design-research reconsiders the vitality of ‘critical architecture’ in relation to contemporary discourse, in particular, the so-called ‘crisis of criticality’ and the implications of this ideological landscape within the built environment. Foregrounding a position to test this theoretical framing, the practical context of the design-research is distinctly urban – engaging one of the contemporary negative outcomes of rapid urbanisation. The practical problem investigates the ‘thick edges’ (places of singular and/or impermeable identities) that manifest around and below new urban motorway infrastructural developments, a condition that creates barriers to cultural, social and spatial flows between communities in urban settings. This thesis argues that by engaging with the complex and multiple cultural conditions of urban sites, the rigidity and singular nature of these impermeable thick edge spaces can be opened to diverse flows relating to multiple contexts. Through processes of design intervention, the thesis proposes a ‘polycontextual’ approach to introduce flows of wider contextual dimensions within an urban site – promoting architectural solutions that blur, fray and punctuate thick edges by developing them as threshold conditions between adjacencies. The theoretical problem analyses the limitations of both the autonomous and post-critical positions; this thesis argues that an alternative trajectory for a contemporary critical architecture has emerged, one that may be used as a theoretical framework for resolving urban thick edge conditions. Jane Rendell, Kim Dovey and Murray Fraser reveal a trajectory to shift architectural practices towards positive and flexible modes of production whilst simultaneously opposing the insufficient positions of the post-critical. They posit that architecture remains an inherently cultural proposition – created through constructive ‘relays’ that can mediate between theory and design – elucidating strategies of resistance through an engagement with practices that are both critical and spatial. Jane Rendell further argues that strategies for such ‘critical spatial practices’ can be elucidated through an examination of processes that are: site-specific, socio-spatial, and temporal. Adopting these three categories as the theoretical framework of this thesis focuses the design-research, implicating critical spatial practices as a contemporary and alternative position for critical architectural production - providing a framework for positive and critical positions in current discourse. In response to this two-fold investigation, the thesis tests a synthesis of critical spatial practices and a polycontextual approach through strategic designresearch propositions. Architecture’s Tightrope proposes a multifunctional events facility that permanently supports the New Zealand International Arts Festival, and the structuration of a dynamic, relational and non-deterministic public space. The primary aims of this thesis are: to test a contemporary critically engendered framework for architectural design-research that is both culturally and formally negotiated; and to investigate the potential for this framework to invert the negative conditions of urban thick edges through an engagement with multiple contexts.</p>

Possibilities for a Post-Colonial Architecture in Residential New Zealand

<p>The ability of architecture to mediate cultural identities, and prescribe spatial practices, empowers it as it provides an avenue through which it can persuade, legitimate, or dominate physical space; not only in terms of how it is conceived of, but also how the social interactions that occur within space are ordered. In other words architecture allows ideology, knowledge and therefore power to mediate space, both physically and culturally. This realisation must result in a heightened questioning and critique of how historic and contemporary architecture functions as a socio-spatial object, and challenge the treatment of architecture as a field autonomous from social and political influence. This is particularly important in countries such as New Zealand, that find their roots in a colonial past, where space, land, and building are at the forefront of cultural appropriation and domination. This thesis investigates the possibilities of producing post-colonial residential forms of architecture through challenging the inherently colonial practices and mechanisms of representation of modern architectural discourse. Situating the investigation within the context of the New Zealand State House, the thesis first seeks to investigate how the State House, and the mechanisms used to represent it, mediated colonial and imperial narratives of space, culture, and society. It also investigates the presence of Bhabha’s performative and Lefebvre’s lived space within the State House developments of Eastern Porirua in contemporary society, to gauge the ways in which inhabitants themselves have challenged the colonial narratives meditated by the state house, and to establish a list of criteria that is used to guide the development of the designs later in the thesis. Second, it seeks to investigate the possibilities for creating a new, what will be termed post-colonial, architectural position through challenging the colonial narratives mediated by the State House and the mechanisms used to represent it with previously suppressed social and cultural narratives. The work follows post-structural and post-colonial theories developed by Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, Bhabha, and Said, and extends their literature based concepts into design experimentation. The thesis presents two residential outcomes, both sited within the State House dominated suburbs of Eastern Porirua. Each outcome is generated through its own design experiment. The first design experiment and outcome challenges colonial mechanisms of architectural representation with the architecture of the wharenui, and, whilst located in the general area of the State House suburbs of Eastern Porirua, is not specifically sited due to the process of the experiment causing the design to be site-less. The second design experiment and outcome challenges the colonial position of the New Zealand State House through reading a State House site within Eastern Porirua through Shirres’ interpretation of the Māori spatial concepts of tapu and noa. The outcomes, despite being produced within established methods of architectural design, make three important positional shifts towards a post-colonial architecture. The first of these is that it produced a critique through alternate cultural architectural and spatial narratives, despite these narratives becoming reframed by the colonial narratives they challenge. The second is that they enacted historical and traditional narratives as forms of critique to architectural practice, removing the disjunction between architectural practice and historical critique. The third is that it incorporated evidence of the spatial practices and perceptions of lived space and the performative into the design, minimising the disjunction between the abstract nature of architectural practice and the fluid activity of everyday life.</p>

Possibilities for a Post-Colonial Architecture in Residential New Zealand

<p>The ability of architecture to mediate cultural identities, and prescribe spatial practices, empowers it as it provides an avenue through which it can persuade, legitimate, or dominate physical space; not only in terms of how it is conceived of, but also how the social interactions that occur within space are ordered. In other words architecture allows ideology, knowledge and therefore power to mediate space, both physically and culturally. This realisation must result in a heightened questioning and critique of how historic and contemporary architecture functions as a socio-spatial object, and challenge the treatment of architecture as a field autonomous from social and political influence. This is particularly important in countries such as New Zealand, that find their roots in a colonial past, where space, land, and building are at the forefront of cultural appropriation and domination. This thesis investigates the possibilities of producing post-colonial residential forms of architecture through challenging the inherently colonial practices and mechanisms of representation of modern architectural discourse. Situating the investigation within the context of the New Zealand State House, the thesis first seeks to investigate how the State House, and the mechanisms used to represent it, mediated colonial and imperial narratives of space, culture, and society. It also investigates the presence of Bhabha’s performative and Lefebvre’s lived space within the State House developments of Eastern Porirua in contemporary society, to gauge the ways in which inhabitants themselves have challenged the colonial narratives meditated by the state house, and to establish a list of criteria that is used to guide the development of the designs later in the thesis. Second, it seeks to investigate the possibilities for creating a new, what will be termed post-colonial, architectural position through challenging the colonial narratives mediated by the State House and the mechanisms used to represent it with previously suppressed social and cultural narratives. The work follows post-structural and post-colonial theories developed by Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, Bhabha, and Said, and extends their literature based concepts into design experimentation. The thesis presents two residential outcomes, both sited within the State House dominated suburbs of Eastern Porirua. Each outcome is generated through its own design experiment. The first design experiment and outcome challenges colonial mechanisms of architectural representation with the architecture of the wharenui, and, whilst located in the general area of the State House suburbs of Eastern Porirua, is not specifically sited due to the process of the experiment causing the design to be site-less. The second design experiment and outcome challenges the colonial position of the New Zealand State House through reading a State House site within Eastern Porirua through Shirres’ interpretation of the Māori spatial concepts of tapu and noa. The outcomes, despite being produced within established methods of architectural design, make three important positional shifts towards a post-colonial architecture. The first of these is that it produced a critique through alternate cultural architectural and spatial narratives, despite these narratives becoming reframed by the colonial narratives they challenge. The second is that they enacted historical and traditional narratives as forms of critique to architectural practice, removing the disjunction between architectural practice and historical critique. The third is that it incorporated evidence of the spatial practices and perceptions of lived space and the performative into the design, minimising the disjunction between the abstract nature of architectural practice and the fluid activity of everyday life.</p>