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. It is concerned with how societies, past and present, allocate space for housing, circumstances that affect housing insecurity, and how gentrification and race-based lending practices of redlining inform an economics of exclusion. It also attends to questions of how people materialize housing markets. Building on classic anthropological research on marketing systems, it asks about the kinds of practices and encounters that create market situations. An anthropology of dwelling is also concerned with changing household composition. How have mass foreclosures and evictions, first with the global financial crisis, then with the public health crisis, altered the composition and dynamics of households and how homes are lived in?
The theme also incorporates questions of household livelihood strategies. In many agrarian societies, for instance, buying and selling land is a strategy households use to insulate their resource base against a variety of potential shocks like illness and death or disappointing harvests. Households may also tap reserves to take advantage of opportunities to expand resource bases or leave agricultural occupations altogether. What sets of changing political, economic, and environmental circumstances prompt households to adapt their investment and livelihood strategies? In these same contexts, house-building itself functions as an investment strategy and store of wealth, often funded by remittances and supplemented by local petty commerce. Housing styles, preference for and availability of construction materials, and the organization of work are also relevant matters.
The concept of dwelling invokes diverse beliefs in ancestors and spirits that dwell on and in family land. An anthropology of dwelling is concerned with the ritual economies that sustain and nourish these supernatural dwellings as well as the challenges that threaten these continuities. Archaeology, long interested in housing and settlement patterns more generally, is especially relevant in the connection between mortuary rituals and burials practices and the definition of living space.
For the SEA's 2026 meeting, we invite posters and papers that contribute toward an anthropology of dwelling. The theme brings together work that expands understandings of how people create housing markets and the factors contributing to housing insecurity. It explores archaeological research on housing and settlement patterns, revising narratives of landscape abandonment, and investigates evolving household composition and adaptations to household livelihood strategies in response to political, economic, and environmental change. Some suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Past and present struggles of vulnerable populations (e.g., internally displaced people, refugees, prisoners, enslaved populations) to secure housing and the broader economics of exclusion these struggles illuminate.
- How societies allocate space for housing: Conflicting interests between conservation and homeless and affordable housing advocates; legal definitions used to distinguish residents for multiple political and economic reasons; dispossession, compulsory surrender, expropriation, and eminent domain; Homeowner's associations and zoning regimes; political and community organizing around land trusts for housing, policy work
- Evolution of household composition and structure: Intergenerational and transnational/migrant households; effects on child-rearing and care practices and home-work; methodological contributions in housing research, including frameworks for cross cultural comparison of housing issues
- Dwelling practices: house-building practices and how homes are lived in; ritual economies and religious practices that sustain ancestral ties to land and challenges in adapting in new economic contexts; new solidarities that emerge around housing practices; household livelihood strategies and social mobility.
- How housing markets are materialized: expanding understanding of housing markets beyond institutionalized definitions; practices and encounters that create housing market situations; how climate, environment, and other circumstances are exploited in manipulating markets
- Understanding housing crises cross-culturally: Factors that affect differential access to affordable housing cross-culturally; downstream effects of unequal housing access on intergenerational transmission of wealth and inheritance practices.
2026 SEA 46th Annual Meeting - Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA)