Inhabiting Displacement

Spaces and Subjects of Architecture

Abstract

This concept paper aims to destabilize the limits and delineations of conventional architectural thinking by disclosing its ambiguities and contingencies through the centralization of the inhabitation-displacement nexus and, by extension, the figure of the inhabitant. Inspired by the two keynote interventions at our architectural workshop, together with the vast array of topics and methodologies brought to the table by our presenters, we primarily argue towards the concept of inhabitation as an epistemic shift of both the site and the subject of architectural (knowledge) production. By focusing on ‘the refugee’ as the contemporary symbolized subject figure of displacement, the paper aims to interrogate the scales and spatialities of its production, framing, and authorship. It centralizes the concept of inhabitation as a modality of both architectural production (alter-architecture) and that of subject formation (alter-subjectification).