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On Margins: Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration

The theme section of the current issue of the peer-reviewed, open access journal ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe is out now! Co-edited by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and Rachel Lee, the section explores intersectional histories of migration, margins and architecture from a feminist perspective.

by Rachel Lee
“A Future Architect?” pencil on paper drawing by S.M. Pithawalla, and “Women Should Not Become Architects!” remarks by G.B. Kahirasagar to the Sir J.J. College of Art School of Architecture Literary and Debating Society. Source: Photo by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, from the archives of the Sir J.J. College of Architecture (Mumbai, India).

“On Margins: Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration,” builds on the following two premises: that the dynamic of a situated and re-situated perspective is foundational to feminist histories of architecture, and that feminist historiographical approaches destabilize presumptions of fixity that have propelled the writing of architectural histories. Through histories of architectures that emerged from individual or collective acts and experiences of migration, the texts in this collection investigate migration and confinement as drivers for modern architecture and its histories, focusing on works by professionally qualified women architects as well as uncredited makers of the built environment. These architectures of migration bring into view margins—whether architectural, structural, cultural, (geo)political, environmental, or economic. This themed section, as one intervention in the broader “Feminist Architectural Histories of Migration” collection sited in multiple journals, posits expanded historiographies that emerge from intersections of architecture, migration, and margins. These offer possibilities to restore absences and silences in the historical record and open onto new theorizations and perspectives situated around the world.

The section includes an introductory essay by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi and Rachel Lee, extensive essays by Sophie Hochaeusl and Armaghan Ziaee, book reviews by Kathleen James-Chakraborty and Mary Pepchinski and a sources piece by Assia Samaï-Bouadjadja.

It’s all here: https://journals.openedition.org/abe/6932

Enjoy!