Sociologies of Construction I – Staying with Construction Sites In Turbulent Times

An expanding body of research understands space as a constantly evolving condition (Lefebvre 1970; Brenner/Schmid 2015). Influential as it has been, this perspective has been criticized for lacking tools for empirical analysis (Ruddick et al. 2018). This session addresses this gap by centering construction sites as material processes in which housing, the built environment, and space are produced, contested, and transformed.

Although construction sites often serve as metaphors for spatial transition, they are seldom examined as primary objects of sociological study. Yet, construction sites are where the ongoing transformation of space can be empirically observed. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s (2016) injunction to stay with the trouble, we propose staying with construction sites.

In turbulent times defined by multiple crises, construction sites offer insightful vantage points to understand processes of segregation, displacement, land grabbing, extractivism, speculation, destruction, and/or reconstruction, as well as the negotiations and struggles that surround them.

We invite contributions engaging questions such as:

• What does it mean to study construction sites in their own right?
• What methodological approaches are used to theorize with, from, and through construction sites?
• Which orders are produced, reproduced, or undone through construction sites?
• Which ecological, human, and more-than-human relationships can be observed at construction sites?
• How does construction site research push the frontiers of the sociology of housing, the built environment, and space?

We welcome empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions (e.g. ethnographic, visual, participatory, multispecies) that treat construction sites as social arenas rather than the backdrop to the production of space and society.