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About the Talk:
Drawing upon over a decade of research, this book responds to the 2006 Chinese national policy of “Building a New Socialist Countryside” by asking a fundamental question: what is the meaning of home for people living in vernacular settlements in rural China? The main dataset, consisting of 610 photographs taken by residents of Yanxia—a place that has since vanished from the map—and interviews, reveals that the meaning of home for rural residents extends beyond the physical boundary of a house and homestead. Instead, it is rooted in cultural traditions embraced by individuals and collectively shared by the community, including kinship structure, family-based economic practices, and an evolving relationship with the land where their families had lived for generations. By employing the photovoice method, this work not only empowers rural residents by giving them a voice, but also preserves the essence of rural lives, the built environment, vernacular place, and cultural landscape for future generations.
About the Speaker:
Wei (Windy) Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she earned a doctorate degree in Architecture. Zhao’s research focuses on the built environment of underrepresented social groups and issues of social equity and sustainability, and cultural diversity in the context of globalization and urbanization. Incorporating theories and methods from Architecture, urban studies, historic preservation, heritage studies, and anthropology, Zhao’s work expands the body of knowledge in architectural and environmental design research by envisioning the built environment not as simply technocratic entities, but rather as contextual, relational, and cultural, and sometimes consanguineous, constructs and as systems of relationships, activities, local knowledge, cultural values, and meanings. Zhao has published two books: Historical Path of Yanxia (Tsinghua University Press, 2013) and Home beyond the House: Transformation of Life, Place, and Tradition in Rural China (Routledge, 2022). In addition to research, Zhao is a licensed architect in the United States. Zhao also runs a multidisciplinary design, research, and consulting practice, MPlacez, aims to provide innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to making places that are culturally rooted and socially sustainable.
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