Toward a Methodological Framework in Architectural Anthropology for Indigenous Wellbeing

Drawing on social and cultural anthropology and built environment–behavior studies, we argue that a transactional and reciprocal focus in architectural anthropology provides a developing methodological framework for addressing Indigenous wellbeing. To understand how Indigenous people might be responding to environmental change, a transactional people–environment relations model is useful in capturing the evolving, mutually influential relations between people and their surrounding environments. This reciprocal approach to analyzing contemporary Indigenous problems that arise from the colonial imposition of cultural change suggests that finding solutions which improve environmental congruence and wellbeing contributes to a form of culturally sustainable architecture; an architecture that responds to a culture-specific context, history, genius loci, and human need. Three exemplary Australian Indigenous case studies in architectural anthropology serve to illustrate how transactionally oriented research can lead to greater environmental congruence and Indigenous wellbeing.