Defining Edges: Toward a Social Poetics of Housing

The house, as a formal and functional type, also provides a basic container for culture and for meaning. Its form will not be altered casually, and when people do undertake to change their houses, those changes will undoubtedly signify other changes in their cultural and social world. Along the U.S./Mexico border, the unique political geography of the borderlands allows people to build their own housing on a broad scale – in other words, to build vernacular housing. This building takes place in colonias – outside the constraints of urban zoning and building codes – by a largely Latino and immigrant population.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Intl.1995.87

Volume Editors
John K. Edwards