Conversation: Sovereignty and Social Practice

Hansy Better Barraza, originally from Barranquilla, Colombia, is Professor Emerita of Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design and principal and co-founder of Studio Luz Architects in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2016, she was awarded a Graham Foundation grant to support the research, writing, and publishing of her book Where Are the Utopian Visionaries? Architecture of Social Exchange, examining the intersection of architecture, culture, and theory. In 2007, she co-founded BR+A+CE: Building Research + Architecture + Community Exchange, a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to creating new spaces through community partnerships.

Teddy Cruz is Professor of Public Culture and Urbanism in the Department of Visual Arts and is Director of Urban Research in the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego. He is recognized internationally for his urban and architectural research of the Tijuana-San Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and civic infrastructure. He is a principal of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice based in San Diego.

Dana Cuff is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she is Director and founder of cityLAB, an award-winning think tank advancing experimental urbanism and architecture. The lab's “housing first” research demonstrates that affordable, well-designed housing and neighborhoods are attainable foundations of equitable cities. Cuff's work focuses on affordable housing, modernism, suburban studies, the politics of place, and the spatial implications of new computer technologies. She is widely published, lectures internationally, and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. Her most recent book is Architectures of Spatial Justice (2023).

Fonna Forman is Professor of Political Science and Founding Director of the Center on Global Justice at the University of California, San Diego. Her work focuses on human rights at the urban scale, climate justice in cities, border ethics, and equitable urbanization in the global south. She is known internationally for her revisionist research on Adam Smith, recuperating the ethical, social, spatial, and public dimensions of his thought. She is a principal of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice based in San Diego.