Glossary
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Conservation
The act of demarcating and enclosing a specific area of land for the sole purpose of maintaining its ecological functions intact and away from the possibility of development. In setting apart a certain area, no matter the size, the land is set on a different ecological trajectory through the societal action of legislature. “To choose one place and not another alters the evolutionary path of human and nonhuman communities along the way. This means that conservation areas form artifacts of the past, present, and future” (Waklid). Conservation is meant to protect flora and fauna and the natural resources that they hinge on such as soils, hydrology for the enjoyment of…
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América Invertida
This 1934 ink on paper drawing by Uruguayan Joaquín Torres-García challenged the notion that Europe and North America are always centered and rendered as the most important land masses in cartographic drawings. In flipping the South American continent and establishing South as the main cardinal direction to follow, Torres-Garcia is challenging the artistic and pedagogic frames that reaffirm the global North as the source of knowledge. Moving back after 40 years abroad, Torres-Garcia established the School of the South in 1943 to develop and promote Uruguay-centric design in the face of the expanding design influence of Europe and the United States. Although drawn early in the 20th century, this piece…
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Autonomous Design
Radical design approach that acknowledges multiplicity in the context of what is potentially being proposed. The term stems from the critical design studies of Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar who asserts that designers should draw from the humanitarian character of materials, culture, politics, epistemologies, and ontologies. He is most associated with popularizing Wlliam’s Jamess concept of the pluriverse, which recognizes the variety of ontologies within respective regions of development. Application of this theory was meant as an attempt to resolve the derogatory comparative analysis of global design through a more inclusive lens as an alternative to the core-periphery model. Escobar additionally addresses the contradiction of the term “autonomous,” as he claims…
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Retablos
Retablos or behind altars are devotional small paintings, typically made on tin or copper, which are made after moments of adversity or miracles to give thanks for divine protection. They are a later interpretation of traditional Spanish ex-votos which were extravagant Catholic commissioned works ranging from chapels to religious statue adornments. The retablo form of ex-votos resulted form Spanish colonization as they attempted to teach Catholicism to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The hybridization of these traditions created a large variation of retablo styles influenced by different Latin American cultures.
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Cultural Transpropriation
Cultural transpropriation is a term proposed by Argentine historian Ezequiel Adamovsky to describe a form of interethnic cultural exchange specific to the Latin American context, where cultural flux plays a crucial role in the making and redefinition of ethnic identities. Unlike cultural appropriation, which is typically framed in Anglo-American discourse as the exploitative or unacknowledged borrowing of cultural elements across rigid ethnic boundaries, cultural transpropriation refers to collective processes of self-transformation through the assimilation of elements from other groups. It is not an individual act of theft or commodification, but a shared endeavor embedded in histories of mestizaje, hybridity, and ethnogenesis, common in Latin American societies. Adamovsky argues that in…
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Multifamiliar
The term multifamiliar is a common name used in Mexican architecture, urban planning and design to refer to multi-story, high-density buildings designed to house multiple families in the same space. These are usually organized in a closed area, with services of their own (ranging from stores and entertainment to schools and hospitals). Mario Pani, the Mexican architect, is known for popularizing the term and leading the construction of multiple social housing projects with this type of building in the twentieth century.
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Relational Urbanism
A theory developed by Fernando Luiz Lara, Professor of Architecture at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, as an extension of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s Amerindian Perspectivism. Lara introduced Relational Urbanism in his 2024 book Spatial Theories for the Americas: Counterweights to Five Centuries of Eurocentrism. This new theory critiqued Western Cartesianism by emphasizing the interconnectedness between Indigenous cultures and nature in Latin America, advocating for the importance of relational knowledge as well as respect between humans and nature in design and architecture. The theory is structured around three key categories: Humanized Nature (rejecting separation between humans and nature, instead implying a spectrum), Materiality (humanizing nature and materials…
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Development
The term “development” refers to the classification of countries in the modern era. Developing is a derogatory Global North classification placed on cultures in the Global South to further other them. The use of the word functions not only as descriptor of economic or societal growth according to Global North standards, but also as rhetoric used to maintain global hierarchies, positioning the Global South inferior. In terms of design, the development framework positions industrial design as a distinct correlation to the culture’s modernity, thus it is superior to Indigenous knowledge and practices. Based on this, Latin American design is othered as their design practices were measured against Global North standards…
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Amerindian Perspectivism
A theory developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s in the 1990s as a critique of Western multiculturalism, suggesting multinaturalism instead. In multiculturalism, Western ontologies established differences in cultures and separated humanity from nature. De Castro argued that indigenous ideologies viewed all of humanity and nature as one culture, which is manifested in various different bodies and beings (multinaturalism). He also suggested that all beings see themselves as “human,” positioning everyone as a subject from their own perspective.
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Hybridization
The processes of interethnic contact and decolonization, globalizing processes, travel and border crossing, and artistic, literary, and mass communicational fusions. A way of accepting and acknowledging the impurity of race especially in Latin America.
