About
The Journal of Architecture Educators is an independent organization made up of Architecture Educators for Justice. This platform supports design educators working on pedagogies of justice, liberation, and critical spatial practice. Architecture Educators for Justice, and the Journal of Architecture Educators were formed in 2025.
The page was initiated by Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz Garcia / WAI Architecture Think Tank, co-recipients of the fellowship, with the intent that it became a public resource to be updated with scholarship, resources, and platforms that center questions of equity, social and ecological justice.
This uncensored edition went online in the Spring of 2025 following the collective resignation of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Education, and the independent formation of the Journal of Architecture Education.
February 8, 2024
Universidad de Puerto Rico
From LandBack to Abolition from WAI Think Tank on Vimeo.
From LandBack to Abolition
While Land Grab is part of the extractive logic of capitalism, with its systems of accumulation, toxicity, and incarceration, LandBack seeks forms of redistribution, rematriation, and abolition. In the face of imperial and colonial military escalation, and the expansion of the prison-complex into perpetual states of exception at the planetary scale, abolitionist imaginaries point towards futures of social and ecological justice and the collective emancipation of the oppressed peoples of the world. Building on the foundations of “From Land Grab to LandBack,” From LandBack to Abolition outlines infrastructures of resistance and the architectures of worldmaking. Through a series of talks, film screenings, roundtable discussions, and workshops From LandBack to Abolition interrogates the many intersections between anti-colonial struggles, and abolitionist practices.
Participants include:
Marili Pizarro, Sofía V. Delgado Torre, Victoria King Martínez, Paulina G. Seneriz Góme, Ariana S. Villegas Cruz, Catherine Marsh, Jorge Díaz / Papel Machete,
Alexandra Pagán,Mariana Iriarte y Natalia Ibrahim Abufarah Dávila, Nora Akawi, Ilze Wolff, WAI Architecture Think Tank.
De la restitución a la abolición
Si bien la desposesión es parte de la lógica extractiva del capitalismo, con sus sistemas de acumulación, toxicidad y encarcelamiento, la restitución (LandBack) busca formas de redistribución, rematriación y abolición. Frente a la escalada militar imperial y colonial, y la expansión del complejo penitenciario hacia perpetuos estados de excepción a escala planetaria, los imaginarios abolicionistas apuntan hacia futuros de justicia social y ecológica y la emancipación colectiva de los pueblos oprimidos del mundo. Partiendo de los cimientos de “From Land Grab to LandBack” (de destitución a restitución) , De la restitución a la abolición (From LandBack to Abolition) describe las infraestructuras de resistencia y las arquitecturas de la creación del mundo. A través de una serie de charlas, proyecciones de películas, mesas redondas y talleres, De la restitución a la abolición interroga las numerosas intersecciones entre las luchas anticoloniales y las prácticas abolicionistas.
Participantes:
Participants include:
Marili Pizarro, Sofía V. Delgado Torre, Victoria King Martínez, Paulina G. Seneriz Góme, Ariana S. Villegas Cruz, Catherine Marsh, Jorge Díaz / Papel Machete,
Alexandra Pagán,Mariana Iriarte y Natalia Ibrahim Abufarah Dávila, Nora Akawi, I
February 21, 2024
Loudreaders / Iowa State University
See the full information in LOUDREADERS
Loudreaders 47: Samia Henni from WAI Think Tank on Vimeo.
Samia Henni is a historian of the built, destroyed and imagined environments. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag 2017, 2022, EN; Editions B42, 2019, FR), and Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (If I Can’t Dance, Framer Framed, edition fink, 2024), and the editor of Deserts Are Not Empty (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2022) and War Zones (gta Verlag, 2018). She is also the maker of exhibitions, such as Performing Colonial Toxicity (Framer Framed, If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam, 2023–04), Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (Zurich, Rotterdam, Berlin, Johannesburg, Paris, Prague, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, 2017–22), Archives: Secret-Défense? (ifa Gallery, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, 2021), and Housing Pharmacology (Manifesta 13, Marseille, 2020). Samia received her PhD in the history and theory of architecture (with distinction, ETH Medal) from ETH Zurich and has taught at Princeton University, ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, Geneva University of Art and Design, and Cornell University. In the summer of 2024, she will join the faculty of McGill University’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture.
September 25-30, 2023
Iowa State University
See the full programming of From Land Grab to LandBack here.
Co-organized by the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University with support from the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, ACSA Fellowship to Advance Equity in Architecture, the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, Graduate School of Architecture at Johannesburg, and Loudreaders with support from the Mellon Foundation, re:arc institute and Producer Hub, the symposium is part of a series of events, exhibitions, roundtables, and publications to be celebrated in Ames (USA), Rio Piedras (Puerto Rico), and Johannesburg (South Africa).
From Land Grab to LandBack
Discussion
September 25, 2023
Iowa State University
Shelley Buffalo (she/they) is an enrolled member of the Meskwaki Nation and lives on the Meskwaki Settlement in Iowa with her teenage son Rider. Her older son, Thomas, works for the Intertribal Buffalo Council. Shelley earned a BFA from Iowa State University, with an emphasis in visual and literary arts and has a long career as an artist, community organizer, and in food sovereignty, social & land justice advocacy. Currently, Shelley is building her firm, Water Panther Consulting, and working with Great Plains Action Society to create a ReMatriation framework to hold returned land and return Indigenous landscapes by building on a vision of an Indigenous future.
Prior to Water Panther Consulting, Shelley served the Meskwaki community as a coordinator at Red Earth Gardens and the Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative. It was through this work that Shelley found the healing power of rematriation by becoming a seed keeper and found sisterhood with the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. She coordinated the Meskwaki seed rematriation partnership with the Chicago Field Museum and the Meskwaki display that is part of the “Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories” exhibition. Shelley coordinated the Meskwaki seed rematriation partnership with Seed Savers Exchange and served as moderator for the SSE Seed Rematriation Webinar series, She coordinated the production of seed rematriation interviews and videos for these seed rematriation partnerships, for the museum display, and for Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative outreach materials.
The Meskwaki are unique in that their land based community is a settlement, not a reservation. Established in 1857 with the purchase of 80 acres near Tama, Iowa, the Meskwaki Settlement has grown to over 8,600 acres. Here’s a link to learn more about the Meskwaki: https://www.meskwaki.org/history/
ut the Meskwaki: https://www.meskwaki.org/history/
Great Plains Action Society
September 26, 2023
Iowa State University
From Land Grab to LandBack: Sikowis Nobiss from WAI Think Tank on Vimeo.
Sikowis Nobiss (she/her) is Plains Cree/Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. At 19 she began her life's work of uplifting Indigenous rights and voices when she got her first job at the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council in Fredericton, Canada during the Burnt Church Rebellion. Between 2010 and 2015, Sikowis attempted to work with various Indigenous folks in Iowa City to build a climate and environment organization but was unsuccessful. However, her goal to found such an organization became a reality in 2016 when she joined the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This led her to co-found Little Creek Camp in February 2017, which transformed into Indigenous Iowa (later renamed Great Plains Action Society). From August 2017 to September 2020, she helped found the national influencer organization Seeding Sovereignty from the ground up. As her heart is with her people and the prairies, Sikowis returned to Great Plains Action Society where she can work at a grassroots level and a fully Indigenous-led organization.
Sikowis has a Masters Degree in Religious Studies and Graduate Minor in Native Studies from the University of Iowa. While attending the U of I from 2005-2008, she sat on many diversity and climate committees and was also the Chair of the U of I Native American Student Association. In 2021 she received the Impact Through Advocacy award from the Iowa Environmental Council. In June 2022, her dedication to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community earned GPAS the OneIowa Community Partnership Award. In March 2023, her work earned Great Plains Action Society recognition for being a women-led organization doing excellent work in the realm of sustainability from the Johnson County United Nations Association Chapter. Sikowis is also a commissioner on the Iowa City Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She also sits on the Midwest Environmental Justice Grant Advisory Committee, the Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector Governance Team and the Just Transition Power Force as a guest expert working to reduce harmful practices in corporate procurement processes.
Sikowis is also a speaker, writer, and artist. She believes that environmental and social justice work are inextricably linked and change will only happen when we dismantle corrupt colonial-capitalist systems and rebuild them with a decolonized worldview. She fights for a better future for her two young children.
https://www.greatplainsaction.org/
Entre Nos Central
University of Texas Arlington
School of Architecture Critical Path Lecture Series
MICHAEL SMITH-MASIS
Arquitecto (2005) San José Costa Rica, Master en Diseño Ambiental Sostenible del Architectural Association de Londrés (2008) y Loeb Fellow de la Universidad de Harvard (2019). Es director de la Oficina Entre Nos Atelier Central y de la Plataforma Justicia Espacial. Es profesor e investigador en la Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Veritas, Tecnológico de Monterrey y de la Universidad de los Andes. Su trabajo ha recibido importantes premios y distinciones a nivel nacional e internacional, fomentando la participación, colaboración, justicia espacial y sostenibilidad.
Architect (2005) San José Costa Rica, Master in Sustainable Environmental Design from the Architectural Association of London (2008) and Loeb Fellow from Harvard University (2019). He is director of the Entre Nos Atelier Central Office and the Spatial Justice Platform. He is a professor and researcher at the University of Costa Rica, Universidad Veritas, Tecnológico de Monterrey and the Universidad de los Andes. His work has received important awards and distinctions at the national and international level, promoting participation, collaboration, spatial justice and sustainability.
studio: indigenous
University of New Mexico