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Women Building Brazil: a history of architecture from the perspective of self-building sites.

Project description

Brazil’s builders in the spotlight

In the history of Brazil’s architectural and construction, the vital contributions of women, particularly in self-building, have often been marginalised. Their expertise and roles in informal building practices remain largely unrecognised, exacerbating historical neglect in architectural narratives, especially in the Global South. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the WBB project aims to rectify this double gap by spotlighting women’s involvement in construction. By using innovative methods rooted in feminist and decolonial principles, WBB aims to gather personal stories and documentation from women builders across Brazil, shedding light on their invaluable contributions to vernacular architecture.

Objective

Women Building Brazil (WBB) seeks to underscore women’s contributions to architecture and construction in Brazil, particularly in contexts of self-building. Its main objective is to address the neglect of both women and informal building practices in architectural and construction history, especially in the global South. The project will tackle that double historical gap by gathering personal stories and documentation on women builders. Its premise is that women’s involvement in self-construction was actually quite common in vernacular architecture but has been affected by the introduction of new building technologies and materials. Expanding our disciplinary scope to include vernacular contexts, WBB employs a novel method combining oral history with disruptive archival research methods and community-based participatory practices, guided by feminist and decolonial principles. This approach will be applied in three territories in Brazil where self-building remains a prevalent custom: quilombos (afro-Brazilian maroon communities), indigenous territories and favelas (urban informal settlements). These distinct settings offer new insights to help recover, analyse, and acknowledge women’s construction know-how. The outcomes of WBB include an oral history archive and a public video collection. The participatory process will also generate a memory artefact, co-created with interviewed women with the purpose of recognizing their expertise and strengthening their building autonomy. In summary, WBB offers a new methodological approach to a growing field of construction history and a gendered analysis that contributes to the broader discipline of architectural history. It maintains a commitment to open science through its research methodology and participatory practices, ensuing constant dissemination of its results. Most importantly, WBB actively seeks ways of empowering women in construction, giving them voice and reaffirming the relevance of their know-how.

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 191 760,00
Address
PRINSSTRAAT 13
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium

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Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Antwerpen Arr. Antwerpen
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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