132 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2015
    1. In dreams, after all, it is fear that creates our monsters rather than monstersthat create our fear.

      mind blown.

    2. I have sought in particularto develop a relational and materially grounded reading of the cyborg as an intrinsicdimension to the co-evolution of social and technological systems.

      Is this to say our process of evolution is inevitably moving towards human/robot hybrids?

    3. A simultaneous transformation in modes of human interaction with waterand social attitudes towards the body found its logical endpoint in the modern bathroom:a private space that marks a clear manifestation of indirect social control of the type

      Interesting example of how society interacts with its built environment and how they influence it.

    4. The latest wave of digitalarchitecture conceives of self-organizing robotic assemblages within the modernhome, for example, which will blur the distinction between architecture and furnitureto create new kinds of interactive and ergonomic spaces

      I'm not quite sure how architecture and furniture will become similar... are chairs going to be coming out of walls?

    5. even if an interconnected skein of nanotechnology were toextend into all aspects of everyday life

      recent research has proven that personal use technology (internet, smartphones, gaming systems) have decreased the skills of interpersonal communication and emotional intelligence (mostly of the millennials generation)... should we be pushing for technology to be involved in all aspects of everyday life?

    6. The blurring of boundaries between the body and the city raises complexities in relationto our understanding of the human subject and the changing characteristics of humanagency.

      Maybe this is to say we shouldn't be blurring the lines of the boundaries so much then? Sounds a bit like playing with fire..

    7. The appearance of the cyborg has engendered a newwaveof fear and trepidation towards the invasion of the body by strange technologiesthat threaten to eliminate or overwhelm the human subject

      It sounds like we're creating our own aliens and then essentially putting them inside of a subject/form that we recognize and are quite familiar with so our initial response to the subject will be favourable.. but we're being tricked.. overpowered.. Has anyone read The Host by Stephanie Meyer? Similar concept...

    8. self-acting

      We're essentially creating things on purpose that are going to have the ability to make their own decisions, possibly be smarter than us, and also have a chance of malfunctioning... Why?

    9. a sophisticated creation thatseems to simultaneously extend but also threaten our understanding of what it means tobe human.

      So if it threatens our understanding of what it means to be human.. is that beneficial to our ongoing research of essentially what makes us humans by constantly pushing our understanding to be deeper? or is harmful and uprooting of the interpersonal/cultural norms we've established?

    10. She referred to the high-rise as if it were some kind of huge animate presence, brooding overthem and keeping a magisterial eye on the events taking place. There was something in thisfeeling — the elevators pumping up and down the long shafts resembled pistons in the chamberof a heart. The residents moving along the corridors were the cells in a network of arteries,the lights in their apartments the neurones of a brain (J.G. Ballard, 1975: 40).

      This description gives me the creeps.. Makes me think of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" for some reason

    1. For them, attachments to abundant heat are indeliblyingrained across their skins, tastes and perceptions

      Do you think it's possible for them to re-adapt to lower temperatures and acquire a new set of preferences for different climate characteristics?

    2. ‘quality of life’

      (QOL)- general well being of individuals and societies. QOL has a wide range of contexts including fields of international development, healthcare, politics, and employment (Google/Wikipedia)

    3. Social service workers repeatedly reminded residents that it did not ‘make sense’to be cold when thermostats stood at recommended settings (69–72F [20.5–22.2C])

      That's so interesting. The residents had become entirely habituated and adapted to a much hotter temperature that they actually felt cold at a standard indoor room temperature.. Sounds like people from Southern California (kidding.. or am I?)

    4. They suggested that the CHA’s heat infra-structures conjoined wastefulness and neglect in ways that encouraged tenants’attachments to heat and, with respect to heat consumption, placed them perma-nently beyond practices of self-sufficiency

      I completely agree with this statement. They were unable to control levels of heat within their homes so when it consistently stayed too hot, they opened windows to let in cold air... hello.. That's like having your sprinklers on for your yard when it's pouring rain outside.. and there's a drought.

    5. Go out and see the birds along the building, singing, because, [therewas] no snow! Everybody be standing over the pipes, talking because it’s warm,standing out all winter long.’

      I visit my family in Chicago every winter.. I can assure you all it's nothing like this anymore. It's cold outside. Whether there is snow or not (due to storm variations every year) it's cold.. very cold.

    6. An inquiry into the senses directs us beyondthe faculties of a subject to the transfers, exchanges and attachments that hinge abody to its environment’

      Are these attachments made by adaptation to what's initially provided? or are they being developed as the subject is creating their built environment?

    7. As an idea, it also circulated within national and local concerns regarding municipaland federal obligations toward low-income citizens.

      Citizens or the federal government felt like more needed to be done? I would appreciate clarification on this point.

  2. Nov 2015
    1. In Jakarta, for example, largechunks of the urban core were cleared of itspoorer residents, replaced with new commer-cial and residential buildings that now, after adecade or so, are being deemed obsolete orstructurally deficient even when they wereimplanted as an instrument of completionor permanence.

      Trends? Realization of how they got rid of the poorer residents?

    2. Such self-management oftenworks well, but it is also contingent uponthe costs and complexities of spare parts andrepairs, as well as the underlying economiccohesion of the neighborhood—in terms ofits ability to hold on to specific values anduses of land and the demographic stabilityof its inhabitants.

      All pieces of the puzzle must come together in order for infrastructure to remain stable. If someone does not have the right tools or access to information, they are helpless to sustain the power of the infrastructure.

    3. Curated social waste dumps and increasesin involuntary infrastructural inequality runrampant, as demonstrated in Chelcea andPulay’s depiction on Bucharest

      What is social waste?

    4. Whetherthis is a matter of intended deceit or an ingen-uous miscalculation as to how infrastructurewill actually be used and the costs entailedto keep it going, those responsible for itscare often run to keep up or simply disappearfrom view.

      So infrastructure is seemingly a negative thing here? Or is the authour pointing out that infrastructure can be abused by power?

    5. Normative understandings of infra-structure usually are organized around theways in which materiality is a platformupon which social differences are created,recognized and sustained

      Materiality causes differentiation in social classes.. the want of materialistic objects and those who have the ability (money) to get them will be higher. Can money buy happiness?

    6. generating virtuous recursive loops

      recursive.. repetition.. recurrence.. rhythm

    7. Thus,any of these occurrences can ramify acrosseach other, affecting and being affected inways that exceed whatever infrastructure isavailable

      Is this to say we need even more structure than what is already in place? Or will the things being contained eventually escape from that rule also?

    1. If this were true for modern society, it has multiplied in ourage of social media, in which control and value are indissolubly linked to the machine ensemblesthat comprise contemporary digital infrastructures.

      I have studied in my International Marketing course here how social media is a cultural institution in society and has an extremely powerful influence on societal structures regarding preferences, levels of acceptance of products/technology, and how consumers are influenced to use them.

    2. ascending an escalator in a department store was moving in a space entirely captured and formedby industrialism

      If it weren't for industrialism they would just be there in that space without the ability that these developments have given them. Holiday gift shopping would be such a different experience in downtown Chicago if elevators didn't exist.. I honestly think people would spend less because they wouldn't want to climb the stairs to additional stores to "just see what's in there".

    3. Pipes turn out to be documents.

      This just blew my mind. Reminds me of this scene in The Fault in Our Stars when Hazel is wearing a shirt with a pipe on it and tries to argue with someone that its not actually a pipe... it's only a drawing of a pipe..

    4. Mbembe points out that often thefunction of awarding infrastructural projects has far more to do with gaining access to governmentcontracts and rewarding patron-client networks than it has to do with their technical function.This is why roads disappear, factories are built but never operated, and bridges go to nowhere.

      Sounds like scheming for political gains.. This is easy to see in the work place or society when one befriends another or joins a certain group for political/hierarchal benefits rather than for the pure purpose of the action. African societies cannot be the only ones who follow these functional implementations of these infrastructural projects.

    5. Manhas,asitwere,becomea kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent.

      So... our inventions (technology) and how we implement them throughout society can make us god like? Makes me think of how we acquire different skill sets so that we can adapt to different tasks or work responsibilities (wearing different hats - if anyone has heard that metaphor)

    6. Infrastructures, for Collier, are amixture of political rationality, administrative techniques, and material systems, and his interest isnot in infrastructure per se but in what it tells us about practices of government. Soviet electricityprovision, through this lens, is analyzed for how it reveals a system of total planning in a commandeconomy rather than for what it tells us about the effects of electricity on users in Russia.

      It's never really about what is in front of us when it comes to politics.. there is always more to it.. His theory is a tool we could study to learn about a country/society's government by looking at the infrastructure they've created.

    7. Placing the system at the center of analysis decenters a focus on technology and offers a moresynthetic perspective, bringing into our conception of machines all sorts of nontechnological ele-ments.

      So it is not really about the technology, but more about how we are implementing the use of it throughout the different areas where these systems are constructed.

    8. Even the free flow of goods that constitutes a laissez-faire economyrests on an infrastructural base that organizes both market and society.

      So even in a hands free scenario, the market and society are still being structured by the government..? Does that really leave it to be hands free? The way the government decides to structure it surely must have an influence on how the turnout is

  3. Oct 2015
    1. 6 But friendship can also form a kind of moral community, whose power should not be underestimated in its reach- ing across.

      If you have a strong enough support system pushing for the same goals (and influenced and tied together by similar morals), you can do anything

    2. . Equally these are attempts to foster an expectation of civility which does not try to set its hopes too high

      Maybe society needs to focus on more short term goals that will be easier to assess on whether or not they are being reached.. It's important to set goals, but setting too high of goals can actually cause more discouragement than motivation

    3. I want to point to the way in which domesticity has been organized on military lines through the institution of the suburb and other normalizing spaces to enforce a particular notion of domestic normalcy which at the same time very often leads to everyday violence

      Okay, I get the idea behind the institution of the suburb and how government is "normalizing" spaces to push for a specific idea or vision of well-behaved and orderly citizens.. But how does this lead to everyday violence? Makes me think of "The Purge" movies... Creepy..?

    4. civilization is a key cause of antagonism: 'society, in trying to pro- tect us from what we want (ultimately, an end to internal tension), instills in subjectivity a profound malaise, while providing "an occasion for enmity"' (Lane 2004, 28).2

      civilization is a major cause of discomfort and provides situations that influences humans to be or feel hostile towards someone or something.. ? Really..

    5. This is surprising, not least because it could be argued that the foundation of social science itself rests on the response to various religious crises which prompted the production of increasingly secular and societal remedies for what had once been considered theological and metaphysical con- cerns: as Comte explained, theology's 'treatment of moral problems [is] exceedingly imperfect, given its inability . .. to deal with practical life' (cited in Lane 2004, 5). Hence, his 'system of positive polity'

      Is this saying theology is just talk? Just fluff essentially? That is does not allow for proper action in response to social or religious societies issues?

    6. . Human interactional intelligence is, so far as we know, predicated upon five qualities

      So this is basically the through process of analysis/division of how humans take in stimuli in the environment?

    7. More to the point, in situations of breakdown, whether epic or mundane, the humble mobile phone has extended the city's interactivity and adaptability in all kinds of ways and may well have been the most significant device to add to a city's overall resilience by adding an extra thread to the urban knot

      Technology is tying cities together, making them stronger, quicker to adapt to changes, and more able to respond to threats.

    8. the ubiquity of aggression is an inevitable by-product of living in cities.

      ubiquity - n.

      the state or capacity of being everywhere, especially at the same time

      aggression is everywhere and its just something that comes with living in a city?

    9. and disaster flooding in from the media that have generated a pervasive fear of catastrophe but also a more deep-seated sense of misanthropy which urban commentators have been loath to acknow- ledge, a sense of misanthropy too often treated as though it were a dirty secre

      Interesting thesis.. Media is known as one of the most influential institutions in society today... is he blaming media?

    1. “If I could take German property without sitting down with them for even a minute but go in with jeeps and machine guns,” said David Ben-Gurion, “I would do that.

      Why is it that humans tend to turn to violence to get what they want? Is this a primal instinct still influencing our interpersonal communications with others? Or is it something taught to us as we grow up and witness what is effective in our world? Is violence an effective way of getting what one wants?

    2. And this was just one of their losses.

      Ouch..

    3. Trayvon Martin

      Travyon Martin as in the recent police victim Travyon Martin?

    4. black people keep on making it, white people keep on taking it—a fact of nature.

      A fact of cultural nature? Culture is created by the society that shares a particular set of values, traditions, beliefs... People can change.. Are we capable of changing our culture?

    5. fit for maximum exploitation, capable of only minimal resistance.

      exploitation should be illegal...

    6. “Any contemplation of compensated emancipation must grapple with how several counties, and some states in the South, would react to finding themselves suddenly outnumbered by free black people.”

      It's easy to imagine the white men being outnumbered by the amount of enslaved african americans.. now let's think about the white men's fear if suddenly all those african americans were set free..

    7. And just as black families of all incomes remain handicapped by a lack of wealth, so too do they remain handicapped by their restricted choice of neighborhood.

      They can't be blamed for not doing better economically because they have such limited choices/opportunities.

    8. In 1930 its population was 112,000. Today it is 36,000. The halcyon talk of “interracial living” is dead. The neighborhood is 92 percent black. Its homicide rate is 45 per 100,000—triple the rate of the city as a whole. The infant-mortality rate is 14 per 1,000—more than twice the national average.

      These are some intense statistics.. It'd be interesting to compare them to other cities in the area..

    9. Blacks were herded into the sights of unscrupulous lenders who took them for money and for sport.

      These lenders think this is all a game... It sickens me that another human would knowingly exploit someone's inability to establish a legitimate position in the credit system.

    10. o that’s just one of my losses.”

      It amazes me that he so willingly accepts his unfair loss... Probably because he knew he would be hurt if he denied them his horse or caused an issue about it..

    11. “You can’t have this horse. We want it,”

      Just like that.. Knowing what kind of bond you can form with a horse, I'd be extremely upset if someone were to take one away that I'd had since I was a child just because they wanted it.

    1. "'overfarming' was a problem in the early 1930s"

    2. "The weakness of this argument is the permanence of an unwarranted urban shift compared to the flexibility which a judicious policy of land preservation would allow future generations."

    3. "compact cities are more economical in many ways"

    4. "Uncertainty of definition plagues the question of urbanization. Is land urbanized when..."

    1. They succeed in doing so largely because the states underwhich they operate are the “soft-states,” in that despite their oftenauthoritarian disposition and political omnipresence, they lack the nec-essary capacity, the hegemony and technological efficacy, to impose full

      control over society."

      It's the people that push the boundaries who find out just how strong/weak they really are. It is more about the atmosphere of a disciplinary society aided by the people's fear that's being enacted throughout societies instead of actual and legitimate control.

    2. Over time, they have created massive communi-ties with millions of inhabitants, complex lifeworlds, economic arrange-ments, cultural practices and life-styles

      The people will find a way to survive.. they always do.. but we should be able to find easier ways to make that happen that will provide better situations for them.

    3. They are also venues where people forge collective identitiesand extend their solidarities beyond their immediate familiar circles toinclude also the unknown, the strangers.

      People are using their built environment to form connections with others who share the same passion or interest.. this can be seen almost anywhere, not just the streets.

    4. But forthose (such as the unemployed, housewives, and broadly the “informalpeople”) who lack such institutional power/settings, streets become acrucial arena to express discontent.

      Riots and defiant parades/organizational rebellions are led along streets... They're literally using their built environment in an abstract way that was probably never thought of being purposed in that way.

    5. I like to suggest that thisnew urbanity, the city-inside-out, not only it exhibits a profound processof exclusion, it also generates new dynamics of publicness that can haveimportant implications for social and political mobilization in terms ofwhat I have described as “street politics” and “political street”

      with new anything comes consequences/change.. it is to decide whether or not these consequences/changes have a beneficial or negative impact on society's well being.. is exclusion a consequence of capitalism?

    6. In other words, for the foreseeable future, the urbandisenfranchised are trapped in the structural web of the current capitalistsystem and the states that uphold it.

      Instead of reading the authour just restate questions and paraphrase, I'd like to read his proposal of solutions or an argument of how these questions could be answered/issues fixed.

    7. women and housewives have totake on many of the tasks traditionally assigned to men like paying bills,attending to bank business, dealing with car mechanics, daily shopping,taking children from school, or going to government offices.

      I think this is a good thing. It puts women closer to holding equal ground with men within the household and outside it.

    8. Here in the city-escapes, under bridges, ingraveyards and side streets, street children have formed “flourishing”outdoor communities, some with elaborate order, discipline, and an
    9. it is a cityshaped more by the logic of Market than the needs of its inhabitants;

      If we're thinking logically how to establish a city.. wouldn't we take into account the needs of the people?

    1. Under these conditions, ideals of urban identity, citizenship and belonging—already threatened by the spreading malaise of a neolib-eral ethic—become much harder to sustain.
    2. The democratization of that right, and the construction of a broad social movement to enforce its will is imperative if the dispossessed are to take back the control which they have for so long been denied, and if they are to institute new modes of urbanization.

      Is this just becoming more of a competition between who ends up with control? I thought we were working towards beneficial social and urban reform here..

    3. The urban crisis that is affecting millions would then be prioritized over the needs of big investors and financiers.

      Would the affected "millions" have the power/force to go up against these "big investors and financiers" though?

    4. A ‘Financial Katrina’ is unfolding, which conveniently (for the developers) threatens to wipe out low-income neighbourhoods on potentially high-value land in many inner-city areas far more effectively and speedily than could be achieved through emi-nent domain.

      unplanned change that will allow the government to overcome initial resistance

    5. The right to the city, as it is now constituted, is too narrowly confined, restricted in most cases to a small political and economic elite who are in a position to shape cities more and more after their own desires.

      Does everyone deserve a right to the city?

    6. Raising the proportion of the surplus held by the state will only have a positive impact if the state itself is brought back under democratic control.
    7. establishing democratic management over its urban deployment constitutes the right to the city.

      easier said than done.. but what are some suggestions for how this could succeed?

    8. contagious

      interesting choice of word here.... second meaning..? relatable to our most recent reading about panopticism?

    9. Signs of rebellion are everywhere: the unrest in China and India is chronic, civil wars rage in Africa, Latin America is in ferment.

      People aren't just unhappy for no reason.. are we taking into account everyone's response to these movements? I know not all societies are governed by a democracy, but it's still important to take into account how citizens will react to changes implemented by the government

    10. precludes

      to prevent something from happening

    11. that the clear distinction which once existed between the urban and the rural is gradually fading into a set of porous spaces of uneven geographical development, under the hegemonic command of capital and the state.

      Is this result what society had in mind during the planning or not so planning and action driven part of the process of this development?

    12. a more insidious and cancerous progression took hold through municipal fiscal discipline, property speculation and the sorting of land-use according to the rate of return for its ‘highest and best use’.

      greed seems to be an apparent theme throughout the development of urbanized areas and "economic growth"... are we really improving if our economy is only getting "better" because we're borrowing the money to make it do that

    13. The parallels with the 1970s are uncanny—including the immediate easy-money response of the Federal Reserve in 2007–08, which will almost certainly generate strong currents of uncontrollable inflation,

      Sometimes there isn't an easy fix for the repercussions of an easy fix we made before to a previous issue.. Instead of a band aid, we need to input the necessary monetary/other resources to completely fix the issue, or it will be a constantly recurring issue

    14. This global scale makes it hard to grasp that what is happening is in principle similar to the transformations that Haussmann oversaw in Paris.

      We should take a microeconomic analytical approach to this situation to focus more on specifics of individual countries and their businesses that might be contributing to the situation

    15. Vast infrastructural projects, including dams and highways—again, all debt-financed—are transforming the landscape.

      "all debt-financed" .... have we thought about the long term effect of this system?

    16. American urban expansion partially steadied the global economy, as the us ran huge trade deficits with the rest of the world, borrowing around $2 billion a day to fuel its insatiable consumerism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

      America's debt is much higher than $2 billion today.. somewhere in the trillions.. is our hunger being fulfilled worth the debt its costing us?

    17. including a dif-ferent kind of urban experience.

      what kind of different "urban experience" could we expect?

    18. this process played a crucial role in stabilizing global capitalism after 1945

      around this time, the US was pretty self-sustainable

    19. he helped resolve the capital-surplus disposal problem by setting up a proto-Keynesian system of debt-financed infrastructural urban improvements.

      what are the pros and cons of a proto-Keynesian system? How closely related in our economic system today to this system?

    20. The economic situation he dealt with by means of a vast programme of infrastructural investment both at home and abroad.

      the economic situation is a deciding factor in the level of growth in urbanization a society experiences

    21. I argue here that urbanization has played a particularly active role

      The competition of capitalism leaves behind issues like resource waste, unemployment, inflation, but through urbanization, society is able to take these left over pieces and produce growth from them

    22. Capitalists must also discover new means of production in general and natural resources in particular, which puts increasing pressure on the natural environment to yield up necessary raw materials and absorb the inevitable waste.

      Sometimes, capitalists can be too focused on yielding up necessary raw materials that they ignore the fact that some of these resources are limited. There's no way to make more silver or gold, but an example of not drying up our resources is to plant two trees for every tree cut down.

    23. The result of contin-ued reinvestment is the expansion of surplus production at a compound rate
    24. since urbanization depends on the mobiliza-tion of a surplus product, an intimate connection emerges between the development of capitalism and urbanization.

      the development and success of capitalism benefits urbanization by contributing resources over time that spur its growth.

    25. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.

      This seems to be Harvey's thesis and what he plans to argue for throughout his piece. He is arguing for our freedom and its relationship with our built environment.

  4. Sep 2015
    1. The dispersal of these people in Brady's is not random, and where people choose to sit or stand in Brady's is closely related to their sex and status in the Brady social hierarchy.

      Clearly, Brady's Bar is only for a select group of people who enjoy being in that atmosphere that focuses on "social hierarchy".. If we're still forming perceptions and making judgments on how we serve customers (and treat co-workers) based off of gender and status.. are we really doing our jobs as socially responsible citizens to improve our society for everyone's benefit?

    2. Waitresses must rely on the bartenders to give them the things they need to serve customers at the tables.

      Is this the most efficient way of managing the environment of the bar..?

    3. "If you leave those there it will make a mess and make me spill things. That's one reason we don't let you bitches behind the bar."

      Well.. that's a little over the top.. Was the waitress ever told previous to this situation to make sure to remove the bottle caps? If you want the waitress to use the space like you do out of routine, then teach the waitress the rules of keeping the area clean before you leave the bar unattended and she has customers to serve.

    4. The invis­ible barrier between the bar and the tables is extremely difficult to cross and for most girls, sitting at the bar is trespassing: only the waitresses seem to have the right or the audacity to do so.

      When I turn of legal age I'm sitting at the bar. Women have every right to occupy that part of the "built environment" just like the men.

    5. Sandy, as well as the other girls, adapt to ritual displays such as these while most female customers would find it intimidating to find themselves in the midst of such male-oriented talk.

      I get that Brady's Bar is typically a place for men or college football players to go which I think is acceptable, but there should still be a line (non-physical) of what is and isn't respectable behavior customers should adhere to.

    6. It used to embarrass me at first but you get used to it.

      Male or female, you shouldn't have to "get used to it". The work environment which is basically an area of the "built environment" that we are using to perform jobs should be one where employees are comfortable.

    7. she is merely an artifact used by men to display their prowess.

      Women should not be objectified regardless of what the "built environment" is. We have the ability to influence our "built environment" so let's do it in a way that helps to evolve it.

    8. Territorial displace­ment is often found in primate societies such as baboon troops.

      It's clear to see that being "territorial" is a natural way of expressing one's position in society whether it be an animal based group or a human based society. Baboon troops actually have very complex social structures within their groups including more characteristics than just being territorial.

    9. When it is crowded, they don't complain, but customers often choose to stand in the aisles and on the steps when there is other space available.

      Regardless of the fact that other space is available, they chose to occupy an area of the bar that has some sort of significance to them personally or with the crowd they typically go to the bar with

    10. The girls unanimously agree that this is a constant problem in their work and they feel helpless to combat it.

      But they're okay with it...... ??? They seem to just accept the fact that these are the working conditions and it's "a part of the job"..

    11. The girls hesitate to use such tactics against some men and fall back on feminine displays of weak­ness and helplessness to get them to move.

      Ladies... this is exactly the opposite of "tactics" we want to use to help society understand we deserve gender inequality.. Fight the urge to give in the easy way out

    12. the customer won't leave her alone and she must do her best to ignore him....

      This is interesting because it counteracts the original problem presented about the waitress being ignored. It seems because of the way the social structure influences the atmosphere of the bar, the waitress is essentially in a losing position each time..

    13. emphasizes the importance of the use of space in social interaction and posits a relationship between social status and space.

      Refers to how we are making use of the "built environment" when interacting with our peers or people from different social classes

    1. In addition to providing shelter against the elements, the par- ticular forms themselves were seen to mirror the cultures that produced them.

      This would support the idea that we are influencing the built environment.

      Contrasts to a point made in the introduction about the built environment influencing us..

    2. Such relationships are interactive, in that people both create, and find their behavior influenced by, the built environmen

      Are we influencing the built environment or is it influencing us... ?

    3. Architecture is typically defined to encompass the built forms, often monumental, characteristic of civilizations, and self-consciously designed and built by specialists

      Monumental adj.

      great in size or importance

    4. broadest sense to any physical alteration of the natural environmen
    5. abstract concep
    6. by humans

      Can it be said that the term "built environment" refers to how humans are implementing their presence throughout nature?

    7. through construction by human

      we are changing the environment

    8. The spatial order, including the built environment, is not only the product of classificatory collective representations based on social forms but also a model for reproducing the social forms themselve

      Are we allowing the technology we use to build around us reform the way society interacts with itself and its surroundings?

    9. Another began to examine built forms as metaphors for complex social and symbolic relationships: the Irish country- men's "west room" (21) or the French peasant "parlour" (393).

      "complex social and symbolic relationships"

      touches on how we are giving an identity to what we have built around us; we've found a specific purpose for each thing.

    10. holistic

      to look at something as a whole and take all detail into account

    11. Architects continue to be fascinated with finding and describing parallels between symbolic structures and architectural forms.

      As mentioned by someone else in a previous comment, the red archway on Whittier College's campus is supposedly a "symbolic structure" and its architectural characteristics offer an interesting representation of something that looks flexible, but is in fact extremely rigid. What could be relatable to this?

    12. regarding the interactions of the built environment with social organization and spatial behavior

      "social organization and spatial behavior"

      how we structure our society and interact with our built surroundings

    13. when the built environment ceases to accommodate behavioral requirements, people seek to correct the problem through construction, renovation, or moving to a different building

      Stauffer Science Building transitioning into the new and improved Science and Learning Center is an example on Whittier College's campus of this idea.

    14. A system of relationships among the physical attributes is often shown to imitate or represent-by their configuration, content, and associations-conscious and unconscious aspects of social life.

      What are some of these "physical attributes" and what "aspects of social life" are they representing?

    15. However, not every change in built form causes or is caused by a corresponding change in social behavior (49, 326).
    16. In the youngest, least urbanized city of Zaria he finds most dwelling construction stemming from generational changes in size and com- position of the resident kin group (341). In the two older cities where land and housing are scarce, he finds most new construction is to accommodate renters who make up close to half of the household population
    17. Another key area of research has focused on the relationship between individual or group identity and housing

      Depending on how many people are involved in the use of an area, the dynamics can change

    18. Some combine structuralist interpretations of house form and culture with the metaphor of the human body

      Our body is the home for our soul and mind, but our body needs a home as well.. Depending on our individualistic needs and wants that can influence how we develop and use the structure.

    19. Ritual performances may also be viewed as the principal mechanism by which meaning in the built environment is activated (175) or as the key to investing domestic spaces with meaning and transforming their meaning

      Can what we build come alive through ritual performances?

    20. Other studies have focused on how ritual activities can create or recreate community boundaries

      community boundaries are usually present in village settings

    21. Cogni- tive and linguistic approaches consider the built environment in terms of systems of knowledge and understanding

      Trying to find the best ways to implement the uses of said "built environment" within our society

    22. In fact, he finds privacy is achieved more often through rules regulating interpersonal behavior rather than by direct manipu- lation of the environment

      Maybe instead of actually building things that provide privacy, creating a societal structure that respects the need for privacy..?

    23. This research has been important in breaking down conceptual boundaries between tradi- tional disciplinary approaches to the built environmen

      Example that challenging tradition can be a good thing

    24. Particularly noteworthy are studies on the struggle over recreational space in Worcester parks (328), the relationship of the automobile to the reorganization of rural American space (176), the changing use of space in charity hospitals (330), and the American depart- ment store (30).
    25. relationship of power and space

      Is this a direct relationship?

    26. illustrates how architecture as an institu- tion contributes to the maintenance of power of one group over anothe

      Countries with better technology can build bigger cities, hence having an advantage by sheer size

    27. Rabinow links the growth of modem forms of political power with the evolution of aesthetic theories and shows how the

      the quote continues on to discuss how the French showed their superiority through the presence of their architecture

    28. Much research in social production has focused primarily on theoretical development, or, when it has focused on empirical details, deals with them at an abstract level.

      This research seems to have a tinge of philosophical influence to it..