| PAPERS __ VOLUMES | SUBMISSIONS | PURCHASE |
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ECOGRAM PAPERS, VOLUME ONE: AFRICA
Schedule: Spring 2014
Why Africa? The unique nature of sustainability in Africa; what do we mean by “social sustainability”? How do we measure it – or can we?
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| Cultural Ecologies | Art and Culture as Creators of Sustainability
The diversity of cultural and artistic responses to various social needs; emphasizing the small scale, and how artists are exploiting access to Western art and cultural markets to do things their own way back home.
Original Texts
Faustin Linyekula and Studios Kabako: Choreographing the recovery from Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Huite Facettes and Groupe Amos: Artistic collectives and responses to public engagement.
Okwui Enwezor: “Civic Imagination”.
Hip-hop artists in Senegal: Appropriation of non-African forms of expression for purposes of political mobilization.
Debate
Mamadou Diouf, Faustin Linyekula and Okwui Enwezor debating the idea of cultural ecologies.
Portfolio
Mabel Wilson and Peter Tolkin: Text + photographs based on their Accra exhibit “Listening There” in Studio X, 2010.
| Appropriate Technologies | Design, Architecture and “Community” in the 21st Century
The idea of “appropriate technology” comes from the 1970s. What is its relevance today? How can we imagine it through the lens of contemporary architecture and design culture more broadly? How is the idea of “community”, long despised by architects, becoming more and more important in the idea of sustainability?
Original Texts
Building Schools in Burkina Fasso: Francis Kere and the idea of the architect as a new masterbuilder.
The Bamboo Bicycle Project: Appropriate Technology and the Holy Grail of the Multiplier Effect.
Cities
Jigar Bhatt on Maputo’s peri-urban water entrepreneurs.
Rosalind Fredericks on trash cleanup in Senegal, c.1988-9.
| The Long View | The Changing Role of Aid in Africa
The context for aid, and “development” in Africa has changed drastically over the last 20 years due to urbanization, democratization and the perception by donor nations of what constitutes “effective” aid.
Debate
Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Isenman and Louis Kasekende: Development and developmentalism, fragility, trust and scale, (mis)alignments between donor nations and African states.
Original Texts
Susan Blaustau on the Millennium Cities Project.
Felipe Correa on oasis conservation in Al-Ain, Qatar.
Cui bono? Richard Plunz on whether developed countries have anything to offer to urban planners and designers.
In an era of urbanization and democratization, Africa’s path is its own. A key concept to understand is the tension between development and sustainability, and suggestions for how it might be used for effectiveness.
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| EDITORS |
Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Ph.D., Editor
Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D., Editor
Melanie Fessel, Managing Editor
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