Color, Fieldwork, and Design Anthropology—A Review of Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State

Abstract

What is the agency of color in comprehending urban landscape space? How could we use ethnography and fieldwork as a method of design research? Why is Design Anthropology considered an emerging field bridging description and action? The color of green in urban environments is sometimes not that green environmentally. This review targets the book Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State in which this paradox can be well observed in an arid city-state—Bahrain of the Gulf region. Based on a year-long fieldwork informed by walking, the author Gareth Doherty read the layers of green and different hues in Bahrain’s urban landscape. With nuanced observations and encounters, Doherty interpreted a thick description of this arid geography, its cultural history and the present values of greening the city. The book considers white and beige the environmental colors to facilitate the possibilities of green in Bahrain. Situated in Landscape Architecture, Urban Studies, and Anthropology, this multidisciplinary piece of work would inform both academics and broader audience on understanding the urbanism of landscape around us and how „green” plays the role in it.

Keywords

Urbanism / Landscape / Fieldwork / Color / Green / City-State / Sustainability

References

[1] Doherty, G. (2011). New Geographies, 3: Urbanisms of Color. Harvard University Press.

[2] Kaasa, A., & Burdett, R. (2011). Color and the City. In G. Doherty (Ed.), New Geographies, 3: Urbanisms of Color (pp. 54-63). Harvard University Press.

[3] Ingold, T., & Jo Vergunst, L. (2008). Introduction. In T. Ingold, & L. Jo Vergunst (Eds.), Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot (pp. 1-19). Ashgate Publishing.

[4] Doherty, G. (2017). Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State. University of California Press.

[5] Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books.

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