Thoth distribution@thoth.pub Google 20260401T131516

urn:uuid:54625e6f-ac14-4a63-8941-7e63dad14670 03 15 9781685712495 00 EB E107 10 01 01 The Social Properties of Concrete 1 A01 Eli Elinoff Eli Elinoff is a Senior Lecturer of Cultural Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. His research explores the intersection between politics, urbanization, and environmental transformation in Southeast Asia. His book, Citizen Designs: City-Making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand, was published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 2021. 2 B01 Kali Rubaii Kali Rubaii is an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue University. Her research explores the environmental and health impacts of militarism in Iraq, and along the supply chain of war. 01 eng 00 478 03 23 Anthropocene 23 concrete 10 SOC002010 10 ARC009000 23 Built Environments 23 cement 23 built environments 23 Cultural Studies+Critical Theory 23 new materialism 23 environmental change 23 militarism 23 politics 23 architecture 23 infrastructure 01 06 03 00 Concrete is a ubiquitous part of our world. It composes our dwellings and shapes our infrastructures. It unites and divides urban space and is used to wage both war and peace. Concrete is simultaneously an indicator of freedom and development and is an essential part of the carceral apparatus. The Social Properties of Concrete begins from the premise that concrete is as richly social as it is densely material. Just as concrete’s materiality permeates our everyday life, our political projects, social practices, religious concepts, environmental transformations, and ethical questions suffuse concrete structures.Like concrete itself, The Social Properties of Concrete is an aggregate: it draws together essays by social scientists, historians, architects, artists, and urban planners who each blend social theory, material science, and empirical analysis to explore the ways in which social life is embedded within concrete and to inquire about how concrete shapes social life. Across forty globally situated chapters, these essays open new conversations around our relationships with anthropogenic stone and serve as a teachable introduction to the social and political lives of materials. By taking this approach, this volume develops a conceptual language and methodological approach that should inform new understandings of material politics and our built environment.The social properties of concrete are neither metaphors nor are they simple reflections of the social. Instead, they are modes of materially enacting social, economic, and political life itself. punctum books 01 punctum books 04 01 20250509 02 WORLD 06 15 9781685712488 06 15 9781685712495 WORLD 09 punctum books 20 01