Drifting - Architecture and Migrancy

In an era of globalisation, there is an unprecedented scale and nature of contemporary migrant flows, as well as the flow of goods, capital, ideas, images and technology. This sheer number and mobility of contemporary migrants clearly has massively disruptive effects on traditional modes of dwelling however they were manifest in everyday life. But contemporary migrancy also has important consequences for the way dwelling is conceptualised more generally. This book is concerned with the modes of dwelling that emerge through migrancy; it is also concerned with the effects these modes of dwelling have for dominant conceptions of space and place; and finally, it is interested in the kinds of architectures that become possible if those effects are taken seriously. This book inspects the intersections between architectures of place and flows of migrancy. It does so without seeking to defend the idea of place, nor lament its passing. Rather, this book is an exploration of the often complex and unorthodoxmodes of dwelling that are emerging precisely from within the ruins of the idea of place. This exploration is informed by post-structuralist analyses of architecture and urbanism, and their representation in media such as film. It focuses on the Pacific Rim as an intensified zone of global flows. Within the Pacific Rim there are complex tensions between the new economies of Asia and the settler nations of Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. These tensions produce difficulties for the narrative of the nation state, and herald conditions that no longer conform to the geo-political norms of the old world.

Ackbar Abbas is Chair/Professor of Comparative Literature and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC), both at the University of Hong Kong Mike Austin is Professor of Architecture at the School of Architecture at Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, where he teaches theory and design Stephen Cairns is Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh where he teaches and researches on architectural design and theory Paul Carter is a Professorial Research Fellow attached to the Australian Centre, the University of Melbourne Mike Davis writes widely on contemporary urbanism Andrew Dawson is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Universities of Melbourne and Hull Jacques Derrida is Director of Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and Professor of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine Catherine Ingraham is Chair/Professor of Graduate Studies in Architecture and Urban Design at Pratt Institute in New York City Jane M. Jacobs is a Reader in Geography with the School of GeoSciences, the University of Edinburgh Mark Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Hull Mirjana Lozanovska is Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Building, at Deakin University Katharyne Mitchell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington in Seattle Brian Morris teaches in the School of Applied Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne Mark Rakatansky is an architect, artist and writer; he is Principal of Mark Rakatansky Studio located in Brooklyn, New York. He teaches design and theory at Columbia University Ella Shohat is Professor of Cultural Studies at the departments of Art & Public Policy, Middle Eastern Studies and Comparative Literature, New York University Sarah Treadwell is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Auckland