Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought and anthropological practice that have influenced the anthropological analysis of architecture. It explores the postwar period and how architectonic contexts begin to reassume a central significance in the understanding of human societies, notably in reference to Lévi-Strauss’s concept of “house societies.” The book discusses institutional forms and their role in the development of anthropological thought. It considers how attachments and detachments are created that produce social life and how new neoliberal practices such as those concerned with regulation and management replace classic Foucauldian understandings of discipline. The book also explores the role of changing consumer practices and gender relations, especially the impact of feminism and changing understandings of materiality on the architecture of the home.