Intersectionality and Architectural History: Diversity and on how address conjointly race, gender, and class issues

Abstract

[EN] Taking as its starting point the increasing importance of the role of digital curators within institutions holding architectural archives, the paper aims to elaborate tools coming from intersectional theory and practice in order to produce an understanding of how women and black men are represented in teaching architectural history in an ensemble of emblematic schools of architecture. More specifically, the paper, through the elaboration of concepts and tools coming from the theory of intersectionality, examine how aspects concerning gender and race can be taken into account when establishing a curriculum of teaching architectural history. It is based on the hypothesis that visualisation strategies can show the evolution of the role of women and black people in architectural discourse. Drawing upon Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work, and on the impact of the theory of intersectionality on digital humanities and digital labour studies (Crenshaw 1991), the paper aims to shape a method of digital curation able to conjointly address issues of race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, or other categories of difference while interpreting the primary sources. Particular emphasis is placed on the fact that the intersectional perspective is the endeavour to interrogate its own positionality and the very processes of knowledge production, the paper also explores how visualisation strategies can show the evolution of the role of women and black people in architectural discourse.