Critical Thinking Methods in the Built Environment

This workshop introduces participants to different approaches to the built environment in critical social sciences and humanities. The main objective is to give participants the tools to situate their own understanding of the built environment – shaped by different social and educational backgrounds – with wider parallel understandings in society. The workshop’s approach is based on experiential learning, rather than reading or design work, allowing participants to gain a grasp on basic critical thinking methods through walking, note-taking, photography, film, sound, and geotagging.

Instructor

Chihab El Khachab is an Associate Professor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Governing Body Fellow of Wolfson College. He is a social anthropologist specializing in visual and media anthropology, with a focus on Egyptian media production. He was educated at the University of Ottawa (BA) and the University of Oxford (DPhil). Prior to his current post, he was a Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology in Christ Church, Oxford (2016-2020), and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in Cambridge (2020-2021). He is the author of Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology and Mediation Shape the Industry (American University in Cairo Press, 2021) and Al-Fahhama (The Explanation Machine, Diwan Publishing, 2022).