Concrete Times

Bibliographic Data

ID2295191
AuthorsJulie Soleil Archambault (0000-0003-1216-6801, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; email: [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume53
Issue1
Pages293-308
Publication date2024-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnual Review of Anthropology (BOOK_SERIES)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0084-6570 • E-ISSN: 1545-4290
PublisherAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-anthro-041422-031946
OpenAlexW4401069746
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited62

Our existence has become so entangled with concrete that it would be difficult to imagine life without it, though we probably should. Anthropologists recognize the part that concrete plays in mediating social relations and in shaping political subjectivities. Thinking about concrete anthropologically involves moving across multiple scales-from large infrastructure projects to modest housebuilding projects. This review asks what we might gain from a focus on this ubiquitous material. I propose that attending ethnographically to how concrete mediates social experiences across scales brings to the fore building as an activity of political, economic, social, and ecological significance. Concrete offers a lens through which to apprehend social formations and transformations as well as to examine how built forms mediate and leverage power, how space is used and claimed, and how futures are imagined and pasts remembered. I conclude with a critical reflection on the ecological implications of these concrete times

Aesthetics · Business · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Futures contract · Leverage (statistics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Computer Science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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Open DOIOpen Access