Houses Transformed : Anthropological Perspectives on Changing Practices of Dwelling and Building

Over the decades, there has been a world-wide transformation of so-called ‘vernacular houses’. Based on ethnographic accounts from different regions, Houses Transformed investigates the changing practices of building houses in a transnational context. It explores the intersection of house biographies and social change, the politics of housing design, the social fabrication of aspirational houses, the domestication of concrete and the intersection of materiality and ontology as well as the rhetoric of the vernacular. The volume provides new anthropological pathways to understand the dynamics of dwelling in the 21st century.

Jonathan Alderman is Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of St Andrews, and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of London.

Rosalie Stolz is the principal investigator of the Project ‘Construction Pioneers: Building Innovation in Upland Northern Laos’ at the University of Cologne, funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.