On April 15, The Society of Architectural Historians named Associate Professor of Architecture Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi the winner of the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award for Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Settlement (Duke University Press, “Theory in Forms” series, 2024). The annual award is among the oldest and most significant honors in architectural historical scholarship, recognizing the most distinguished book-length work by a North America scholar.
The Society of Architectural Historians made the announcement at the 79th Annual International Conference, held in Mexico City. Committee members applauded Architecture of Migration for its breadth of research and keen use of archival materials, demonstrating that “the making of refugee settlements… deserves the exploration architectural historians have more typically accorded the city plans and monuments of nation-states.”
“It means a great deal to receive this recognition from peers with intimate knowledge of the tribulations and stakes of research, especially as no other book on African architectural history has ever received the award,” said Siddiqi.
Architecture of Migration builds on her specialization in histories of migration and settlement, as well as extensive research in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The book focuses on the spatial and racial politics embedded within the Dadaab refugee camps, established in 1991 on the Kenya-Somalia border, theorizing these spaces as complex settlements created through histories of partition, sedentarization, domesticity, and migration.
“This year's award acknowledges the 14 years of research and writing behind Architecture of Migration and the people who live within its pages, as part of a fulsome history of African thought and placemaking in an area of armed conflict impacted by U.S. imperial interests and international security statecraft, as well as a collaboration with refugees, artists, and architects demand
“I was not able to put Architecture of Migration into the hands of my advisor Jean-Louis Cohen before he passed away, and cannot help but reflect on the ways my book follows in the footsteps of Architecture in Uniform, for which he received the Hitchcock Award in 2013: a book on architectures of war to which I contributed research and which grounded my scholarship at the intersection of architectural history, migration, and colonialism.”