“Whose Tradition?” is the theme of the fourteenth conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE) to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from December 14-17, 2014. In examining themes of authorship and subjectivity, this conference will seek to uncover in what manner, for what reason, by whom, to what effect, and during what intervals traditions have been deployed with regard to the built environment.
Our current period of globalization has led to the flexible reinterpretation of traditions via the mass media for reasons of power and profit. A proliferation of environments adopt traditional forms of one place and period in a completely different contextual setting, while new design traditions may privilege image over experience. At the same time, the advent of new mobile technologies with the power to compress and distort traditional configurations of space and time has allowed for the flourishing of new, empowering practices. Such practices have led to new traditions of urban resistance and uprisings that travel fluidly between such diverse locales as São Paolo and Istanbul, Madrid and Cairo, and give voice to certain populations previously excluded. Questions of power, the other, and changing configurations of time and space will open up discussions of the ways in which traditional practices shape the histories and futures of built environments. Papers will explore the following themes: Who: Power and the Construction of Traditions; What: Place and the Anchoring of Traditions; Where: Mobility and the Reimagination of Traditions.
Scholars from relevant disciplines are invited to submit a 500-word abstract and short biography by February 17, 2014. Submission details are available online at: http://iaste.berkeley.edu/
Inquiries should be directed to:
IASTE 2014 Conference, Center for Environmental Design Research,
390 Wurster Hall #1839,
University of California, Berkeley, CA
94720-1839, USA.
Phone: 510.642.6801
fax:510.643.5571
e-mail: iaste@berkeley.edu
IASTE is an academic, non-profit association based at the University of California, Berkeley since 1988, and its activities have included the publication of a semi-annual journal, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, and an ongoing Working Paper Series.
