Editorial Embracing and Accounting for the Political Economy of Construction

Editorial

Embracing and Accounting
for the Political Economy of Construction

La construction est la condition sine qua non de toute vie culturelle, économique et sociale 1 .

Construction history is a branch of knowledge that as yet has no specific research plan, no agreed theoretical framework, and no formal mechanism for its transmission through teaching. Its methods borrow from both the sciences and the humanities. However, despite shortcomings as a formal discipline, construction history is a branch of knowledge becoming increasingly popular, and this is because it deals with a fundamental human activity, the provision of shelter.

Ædificare has been established to recognise that construction history provides a meeting point, a specific space within which to address transversal, or cross-disciplinary, issues. The editors have helpfully identified some of the important topics for transversal study.

–The locus of construction work.

–The place of construction knowledge.

–The materials of construction.

–The decision to construct; who decides.

–The effect of time on construction.

–Those who construct, craftsmen, contractors, designers.

In reviewing the editorials of the first ten issues of the journal it is noticeable that each in some way calls for construction history to 14broaden its scope or alter its perspective so it can address major topics that are staring us in the face. Dominique Barjot sees the recent profound transformation of the production structures of construction as a major challenge for construction historians2. Valérie Nègre argues for a ‘circular economy of knowledge’3, and later with Robert Carvais urges us to concentrate on the ‘life of materials’4. The regulatory/political failures that led to the Grenfell Tower fire and the material/design failures of the Morandi bridge, have tragically emphasised the need for more transverse historical research5. Just recently in the UK, political indifference to widespread failures in the once popular reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), has resulted in emergency school closures, its history closely related to degradation in the public authority for construction research since the privatisation of the government’s world renowned Building Research Establishment in 1997, just a year after their report into systematic failures in RAAC concrete6. The general depletion of resources and the response of construction to climate change are also addressed in Aedificare editorials, and this is a welcome development.

I am not suggesting that traditional accounts of technological invention and application are no longer valid as construction history or are necessarily misleading, just that the hot topics in this time of remarkable transformation in construction should reflect the social and political context within which the change is taking place. In a way I am recalling Bijker, Hughes and Pinch’s 1980s plea for a proper sociology of technology, with ‘thick descriptions’ and ‘actors’ networks’7.

A pioneer in the use of such a transverse approach to construction is the geographer Yves Lacoste, whose articles from the 1950s include one on the global cement industry8, and one on the wider construction industry9. 15Lacoste is known as a progenitor of the concept of geopolitics, and both articles engage with the post-war global political economy in a convincing way. What is happening technologically is properly explained in terms of what is happening politically and economically.

For Lacoste “geography is a form of strategic and political knowledge, central to the military strategy and the exercise of political power”10. Michel Foucault, after debating with Lacoste in 1976, altered his position, agreeing that geography is indeed the meeting point of space and power11. The geographical dimension is increasingly relevant to construction history also, because of the transformations that construction is undergoing at a global scale12. A contemporary exemplar of the transverse approach to construction history is Dominique Barjot, sometimes taking an explicit dive into political issues that shape construction, and always alert to global issues driving change13. His editorial for Aedificare No. 9, “The Sources of Value Creation: Companies, Entrepreneurs, Engineers and Workers” makes the point that construction history needs to cast its net much wider than the technical or architectural factors, however necessary they of course are, if it is to capture the true nature of contemporary transformations.

So, what tools might be available to help construction historians in the framing of a wider, more transverse reading of the transformation of construction under late capitalism? A relatively new discipline International Political Economy, or IPE has emerged to provide a framework to explain the dynamics we are witnessing. Seeing the global 16economy as a political competition that produces winners and losers, IPE examines how state and non-state actors pursue wealth and power. Emphasising economic concepts as well as the interplay between domestic and international politics, IPE encourages critical thought about how economic policy is made in the context of globalisation14. The reason this is important for construction history is that population growth, the mobility of capital and its instruments of distribution over the last twenty years are transforming every construction market and the culture of construction everywhere: the extraction of raw materials, the manufacture and distribution of building materials, products and systems of construction, the organization and execution of construction, the management of construction labour and not least the position of architects and engineers. We construction historians can learn much from the approaches being tried by IPE. There is a need for a synoptic view of the political economy of construction, the forces that change the way we build, from population growth to resource scarcity. Construction is a universal activity that, as Yves Lacoste realised in the 1950s, is an important aspect of the anthropocene, man’s interaction with the geology and ecosystems of the planet.

The global hegemony of the Western institutional framework of construction, now reinforced by computer applications, and diffused through the worldwide web, is a huge and fascinating field for construction historians, as are the global oligopolies dominating virtually every category of construction product or material. There is plenty to talk about.

Andrew Rabeneck