ACTIONING SUMMIT 6: How to bring science, spirituality and politics together (acknowledging indigenous knowledge)

The sixth ACTIONING SUMMIT will tackle the methodological questions that surround the uniting of different forms of knowledge with Marisol de la Cadena (UC Davis) and Elizabeth Povinelli (Columbia Department of Anthropology).

Interventions by Ziad Jamalledine (GSAPP, L.E.FT) and Karla Rothstein (GSAPP, Latent).

Marisol de la Cadena is Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at UC Davis. She is an anthropologist working through what she calls “ontological openings,” interested in ethnographic concepts that blur the distinction between theory and the empirical because they are not without the latter.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is the Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University where she has also been director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and co-director of the Centre for the Study of Law and Culture. Informed by settler colonial theory, pragmatism and critical theory, Povinelli’s writing has focused on developing a critical theory of late liberalism that would support an anthropology of the otherwise. She is the author of books and essays as well as former editor of the academic journal Public Culture. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Yale University in 1991.

The ACTIONING SUMMITS are an unprecedented effort to affirm how architecture, planning, development, and preservation are anticipating desirable and alternative futures. During a period of eight months, these summits will convene activists, architects, artists, designers, developers, ethnographers, historians, planners, policymakers, politicians, thinkers, and community organizers from around the world to address together eight crucial methodological shifts in the way the disciplines of the built environment operate and collaborate with each other.

The summits will offer a space and opportunity to situate specialized knowledge within specific histories and contexts. During the ACTIONING SUMMITS, participants will discuss a concrete methodological shift elaborated through the tools, practices, protocols, and forms of engagement that have unfolded as part of specific projects or processes they have actively participated in.

Please visit GSAPP’s event calendar to learn more about each ACTIONING SUMMIT. All summits will be live streamed on GSAPP’s YouTube channel.

The ACTIONING SUMMITS are curated by Andrés Jaque, Dean, and Bart-Jan Polman, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programming and Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.