SEA 46th Annual Meeting: The Anthropology of Dwelling

Housing is a basic human need. It is also a human artifact, infused with social relations, ritual and religious practices, and cultural meanings that transform physical structures into habitations and dwellings. For the 2026 meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology, we bring together research from across the subdisciplines that showcases the state of the art of economic anthropology on the topic of housing and dwelling. An anthropology of dwelling is concerned with housing crises, broadly and historically, and explores how societies, past and present, allocate space for housing, circumstances that affect housing insecurity, gentrification, race-based lending practices, and the economics of exclusion. It investigates how people materialize housing markets, the impact of mass foreclosures and evictions on household composition and dynamics, and changing household livelihood strategies. The theme also incorporates questions of house-building as an investment strategy, and the diverse beliefs in ancestors and spirits that dwell on and in family land. Papers and posters are invited to contribute toward an anthropology of dwelling, expanding understandings of how people create housing markets and the factors contributing to housing insecurity, including archaeological research on housing and settlement patterns, and adaptations to livelihood strategies in response to political, economic, and environmental change. Suggested topics include struggles of vulnerable populations to secure housing, societal allocation of space for housing (e.g., zoning, eminent domain, land trusts), evolution of household composition (e.g., intergenerational, transnational households), dwelling practices (e.g., house-building, ritual economies, new solidarities), and understanding housing crises cross-culturally.