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Agha, Menna. “Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect.” Architectural Histories 8, art. 23 (Special Collection: Architectural Historiography and Fourth Wave Feminism) (2020): 1–13.

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Agha, Menna. “Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect.” Architectural Histories 8, art. 23 (Special Collection: Architectural Historiography and Fourth Wave Feminism) (2020): 1–13.

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2020 - Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect

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In the research article "Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect," Menna Agha discusses her family's matriarchal background, where female ancestors assumed roles akin to architects. This challenges the predominantly male-centric Western architecture sphere. However, I struggle to see how this narrative extends beyond a specific group. While it could serve as a case study, emotional involvement in architecture seems globally significant. Growing up in urban settings and apartment living for generations, I question how emotional engagement can translate to modern, larger, and denser constructions where anonymity prevails, unlike in ancestral homes. How do emotions factor into large-scale construction? Does this theory apply solely to personal, small-scale housing projects?

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We keep hearing that urban design needs to move beyond a Western-centric perspective and embrace theories from the Global South. But isn’t this just another academic trend? We talk about informality as if it’s some kind of innovative design principle, but in reality, informal settlements emerge from necessity, not choice. They exist because of economic disparity, lack of governance, and systemic failures—not because they offer some superior urban model.

So, are we romanticizing informality? Western planners spent decades trying to eliminate so-called "chaotic" urban conditions, and now we’re supposed to celebrate them? If informal urbanism is so effective, why do governments and residents themselves constantly seek to formalize it? When people move into self-built settlements, their goal is often to escape them, not to preserve them as a model for future cities.

If we genuinely believe there’s something to learn from these spaces, how do we extract lessons without turning them into abstract theory or design inspiration detached from the realities of poverty and struggle? Are we actually challenging dominant narratives, or are we just repackaging informality as a new aesthetic without addressing the deeper structural inequalities that make it necessary in the first place?

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Menna Agha redefines the role of an architect in a way that was previously unfamiliar to me. She addresses fundamental questions about construction and the responsibilities of architects, offering a perspective shaped by her identity as a woman from the Nubian region. Unlike in Western cultures, where emotions are often viewed as personal and individual experiences, they play a fundamental role in African societies. Emotions are not merely private feelings but hold significant value within the broader social fabric.

What stood out to me was the resettlement after dams were built along the river. It serves as a clear example of how not to approach building in a foreign context. The state-led reconstruction followed a modernist approach that ignored local building traditions, imposing architectural typologies unsuited to the local environment. In contrast, Nubian society demonstrates resilience by developing new architectural forms, such as the madyafa, following the downsizing of dwellings. Still I think you shouldn't romantisize it, as these bottom-up settlements often arise from a necessity and also come with downsides.

I ask myself how her observations apply to a more urban context, if similar behaviours can be found and how they compare.

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We keep talking about rethinking our system and moving beyond the patriarchal, Western, capitalistic model, but then introduce terms like emotional capital to do so. Is it necessary to use this kind of language to legitimize the concepts of care, respect and communal investment and to be taken seriously in the [general] contemporary discourse? Translating immaterial contributions into economic terms reinforces the very system that we are trying to move beyond and it resticts the decolonizing efforts that are being made.

Communities worldwide engage in acts of care that shape the built environment, but their efforts are at risk of being reduced to something transactional when speaking of emotional labor or capital, rather than being acknowledged as an embedded force of community building. They become subject of calculation and theorization [, which was criticized in Escobar´s «Designs for the Pluriverse]. At the sime time, this rationalization or reason, even if being the subject of critique in both texts, might be necessary to create recognition in the current discourse. But if so, it has to be treated with great care and just be used as a medium in order to be heard and seen, and not romanticize informality.

But can we avoid this shift to romanticization if this approach is necessary.. or is there maybe [, hopefully] another way? Could flooding the discourse be an option, so no corruption of the concepts is of need? And what if we [for example] spoke of emotional value, resilience or embedded knowledge instead?

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In her text, Menna Agha underlines the existence of emotional capital when doing architecture. This practice, used by women and men, is the proof that elements such as care, trust and mental support play a big role when building new societies. Based on exemples from her motherland (Nubian), Menna reveals the importance of the “invisible actors” on the construction sites and brings forward the importance of the emotional ressources when building up a wall or bringing together a community space for exemple.

Connecting with the primary reading, both texts challenge dominant design paradigms by advocating for more inclusive and holistic approaches. Escobar emphasizes ontological design that integrates local and indigenous knowledge, while Agha highlights the importance of emotional capital and the recognition of emotional labor in placemaking. Both authors call for practices that respect and uplift marginalized communities, recognizing the social, ecological, and emotional dimensions of design and architecture.

In her text the author depicts a Nubian society where women play an important role in the family life (marchiacal familly, you own the family name of the mother). There is a sense of respect for the women of the families. However we understand by reading that no big responsabilites are given to these women, that men are still ruling the communities. I wonder how this dissonance functions: How come is the important role given to women in their household dismissed when it comes outside of the families walls? What would the settlements look like if all genders joined forces to create a new type of architecture: one that mixes emotions and technicalities from the start ?

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Is it possible to conduct a building practice with an emotional intention — where the « emotional capital » is valued and credited — in the Western context, which, as we saw in Escobar’s Design for the Pluriverse, has been capitalizing rather on profit, technology and expansion for decades, where caring is not recognized as a capital? In the beginning of her text, Agha relates her trajectory in her research, saying that in order to move away from this Western understanding of the building practitioner (the architect as an intellectual, clearly distinguished from the manual labourer) and orient herself towards a new understanding of building as a practice that recognizes the importance of emotion, she had to « switch[…] from being a scholar back to being a Nubian woman ». To which state should Western architects switch back?

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In Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect, Menna Agha highlights emotional labor as an invisible and often unrecognized aspect of architecture. She critiques traditional, patriarchal views that overlook emotional contributions, particularly from women, in spatial production. Agha suggests that emotional labor—especially by women—should be recognized as "emotional capital," which includes more than caregiving; it contributes to building communities and spaces. An example is Fato Sakina, a Nubian woman who helped build a Madyafa (community center) by investing emotional capital through trust and community relationships before organizing funds and construction.

This emotional labor is often invisible in architecture because it isn’t physical construction, yet it plays a crucial role in creating meaningful spaces. Agha argues that recognizing emotional labor as capital could foster justice in architectural practice and better understanding of how emotions shape space and identity. This perspective broadens the role of the architect to include emotional contributions as vital as physical and intellectual design.

So now I ask myself:

How can we ensure that emotional labor, which traditionally remains invisible and unrecognized, is truly valued in modern architectural education and practice, without being seen only as a supplement to physical and intellectual construction?

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The complexity of 'Home'.

'Home' not just as a physical but a social and emotional space, connected to memories, relationships and identity.

'Home' transcends the physical structure and is deeply rooted in emotional attachments and memories. The experience of Nubian displacement vividly illustrates that a home is not solely defined by walls and a roof. Instead, it is profoundly connected to the emotional bond with ancestral lands, the memories held within them, and the collective history of a community. The concept of 'home' is often deeply intertwined with a sense of permanence and continuity. Given the experience of forced displacement, how has the temporal dimension of 'home' been reconfigured for the Nubian people? Can home-making be considered an ongoing negotiation rather than a final state?

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Beautiful text! I really enjoyed reading and catching a glimpse through the diffrent Lenses that were described by Menna Agha. The usage of Nubian knowlege and western theory, alternating throughout the text gives a strong contextaluzation and a vertile ground for the future. The topic of emotion and care in architecture and its roots in history are mostly overlooked in Europe. How can we transform our cities and districts to house suche placemakers and placemaking?

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“Acknowledging the emotional work of the placemaker rewards the maker with social, cultural, and economic capital. This recognition can elevate their social standing and contribute to their prosperity, just as they contribute with their emotional work to the prosperity of others. Appreciating emotional work becomes a matter of justice.”

As mentioned previously, the author’s uncles recognised that the love they share with their grand mother is maintained by her labor towards them and by their labor “back”. Their physical labor and her emotional labor, together built them a house, as well as confirmed that as family they can count on each other, creating physical safety (a house) as well as emotional safety (a community). And without love/emotional labor the house would not be built and without the house/work to do, the love would not be maintained.

Extending Bourdieu’s theory of social, cultural and economic capitals with the emotional capital is a clever way to include what is typically “feminine” in the broader narrative of humanity, where western “thinking” repetitively excluded the emotional labor and the maintaining of relationships/communities as something irrelevant. With my insight today I can really tell that, emotional labor of reaching out, taking decisions, caring or remembering things about your closed ones’ lives is not acknowledged nor appreciated in relationships, the effort we put into our circles is weak. I am wondering, outside of my individual scale and what I can do to strengthen my circles, how can we shift this way of living in the western world? How can we raise awareness for the importance and rewards of emotional labor?

The relationship to the built environment is also very different when your own labor produced a space, like in this text, but in a city such as Zürich, how can the bond between an individual and the city get deeper? How can we, not only as architects but as inhabitants, care for our spaces in a way that is rewarding?

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Stories of the displacement and building/ material culture of nubian women show that architecture doesn’t only happen in a physical space. It’s more a dialogue between material and immaterial, the visible and invisible.

What if material, physical objects designed for a western-centric idea of aesthetic would give space to invisible relations between humans, the emotional and embodied.

I’m asking myself, which aesthetic principles would develop in such a shift. Also touching on the topic of design fully integrating into the neoliberal model of capitalism comes to play, which is described in the primary reading by Arturo Escobar.
Where he says, that the multiple crises demand „nothing less than a reinvention of the human“.

Could the image of Sanaa and the fellow women taking time off their white-collar jobs plastering the facade of a building with their bare hands, generating aesthetic value with their physical/„emotional touch“ serve as an example of the reinvention of the human in relation to architecture in a post-capitalist world?

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I really enjoyed reading this text as it is written in a very precise and contextualised way to about the idea of emotional capital. For me this is the first time I got confronted by this idea and I think it’s really beautiful and I loved the appreciation and recognition of emotional labour. I like how the text plays with personal experience and academic theories from different cultures while always taking position to the references. Taking those different perspectives into account while having a clear attitude and argument made it very enjoyable to read and easy to understand. It would be very interesting to think about how this emotional capital and labour culture could be translated into western culture.

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In general I find Menna Agha’s text very intriguing. And I can see myself while emotional capital can maybe in a way make you more resilient from own experiences. Yet a few questions arise, how can emotional capital (in the context of architectural profession) being used if you haven’t lived at a certain place for a long time and being able to build a connection with the local community and their culture? Or is it more about identifying and supporting them in their emotional capital?

Coming back to the idea of the architect as the mediator, could the architect mediate between the emotional capital of a community and economic interests?

In relation to urban fabric, things like water distribution, pathways, energy resources are needed nowadays to settle. Thus big interventions in the city fabric might have to be planned. Could it be a possibility for the architect to mediate between those bigger interventions while identifying the potential and resources of the emotional capital of the community and mediate between those two scales?

I also wonder what equals the community of women who take great care of the clay wall in Switzerland. Is there such a community of care? And if so what could we do as future architects to reinstall such a care community within an economical driven society? I feel like in Western societies or my context of Switzerland emotional capital might not be appreciated as much as architects sometimes would like it or dream about. What could we do improve that relationship without romanticising it?

Lastly, does it still need the profession of the architect, if the local population most of the time might have the emotional capital whereas the architect as ‘intruder’ does not?

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Design, particularly within architecture and urban planning, is deeply intertwined with systems of power. It has long functioned as an instrument of efficiency, profit, and control, reinforcing capitalist ideologies. However, an alternative vision is possible, one that moves beyond industrial and rationalist traditions to embrace inclusivity, collaboration, and a recognition of multiple ways of living.

While Escobar’s ideas offer a compelling critique of the system, the reality remains that grassroots initiatives often struggle to sustain themselves in a market-driven world. How can a design philosophy that resists profit-driven motives survive within an economy that prioritizes financial viability? Is it possible to create models that challenge capitalism while still operating within its constraints?

The challenge lies in finding ways to foster alternative models of design that are both viable and resistant to co-optation, ensuring that progress does not come at the cost of social and ecological integrity.

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I found the text to be very rich and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. One aspect that particularly interests me is the theme of emotional capital and the question of visibility. Like most immaterial forms of labor, emotional capital seems to stand on shaky ground, as it is not directly visible but only becomes apparent indirectly, as the text illustrates. At the same time, these qualities are often not specifically appreciated, overlooked, dismissed as coincidence, or simply taken for granted. The text beautifully demonstrates how this emotional capital can be transformed into the enabling of the built environment.

One issue I see is that truth always emerges between at least two people—meaning that in order to “convert” emotional capital, I also need someone on the other end who values it. In the context of the Swiss construction industry, which likely has a less rich social history than the communal building actions of the nubian community, it seems like a bold endeavor to rely on this emotional capital. Given this, it would be interesting to explore what steps other societies need to take to again recognize and appreciate the value of emotional capital?

Another question that comes to mind is whether, in relation to the building activities of the three women, this is truly a matter of emotion—or whether motivation might be the more fitting term? It seems to me that their motivation for building is primarily rooted in social, familial, and matriarchal thinking. I am not entirely sure how to situate the word "emotion" in this context.

In any case, it is an inspiring text and another example of how different cultures uphold different values. It reinforces the feeling that Western cultures could learn more from this and should climb down from the high horse of the supposed superiority of the purely rational human being.

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I was particularly touched by the three stories. They show in a very personal and comprehensible way how emotional labour not only organizes community and creates space, but also shapes architecture, beyond technical or formal definitions. These stories lent the text a strong emotional depth and made the theoretical concept of emotional capital tangible.

This raises the question:

If care and emotional labour are to be recognized as an architectural achievement, how could this recognition be concretely reflected in training curricula, professional titles or state funding without risking new forms of exploitation of emotional resources (e.g. of women or marginalized groups)?

Menna Agha reveals a paradox here: While emotional labor is often considered “invisible” or secondary in patriarchal societies, it is at the same time so powerful and deeply rooted that its traces remain indelible in the built space and in collective memory. It is particularly remarkable that this recognition sometimes even comes from those who otherwise systematically marginalize female contributions. This points to the transformative power of emotional capital and at the same time calls into question the common division between “technical” and “emotional” competence.

So why do Western-led architectural discourses continue to overlook or devalue these achievements, even in cultural contexts where they have long been deeply recognized?

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Agha’s text shows that architecture students should not only learn the technical aspects of drafting plans, but also develop empathy and social skills. However, there is a concern that these emotional resources can quickly be overshadowed by financial and legal requirements in actual practice. Because emotions are subjective and create vulnerability, they may also increase the potential for conflict. Nevertheless, this perspective opens up a broader discourse: by recognizing emotions as an essential part of the design process, we validate informal contributions and foster an architecture that is not just functional, but also human and community oriented. For me, this approach offers real added value: when personal and social elements inform the design, we create authentic places that are visibly closer to people’s needs.

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In Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect, it is highlighted that architecture encompasses much more than just technical skills and design. In particular, the concept of “emotional capital” demonstrates that social and communicative abilities play a crucial role in successfully navigating a complex societal and economic context.

Often, architects are depicted as generalists, expected to be proficient in all areas of the discipline. However, it should also be legitimate to consciously choose not to pursue this versatility and instead focus on a specific area within architecture. While the image of the architect as a generalist might be an aspirational goal for many, I believe that those who specialize – for example, in bathroom design – also make a valuable contribution. These specialists should be recognized and appreciated within the field.

The text encourages us to understand architecture in its full breadth and depth. A progressive practice should embrace both versatility and specialization within the discipline. Recognizing both is essential for the growth of architecture. Ultimately, it is this diversity of approaches and specialties that allows the discipline to continuously evolve. It is crucial to view architecture as a collaborative practice where different perspectives and approaches coexist and interact.

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Right at the beginning of the text, the author points out that communication between locals or even her aunt and herself can lead to misunderstandings. We have to learn to listen and understand the other without interpreting. Even Menna Agha - a Nubian woman - does not understand the Nubian people to some extent, as she is already influenced and shaped by the western world.

So she herself realizes that her people - the Nubian people - give her grandmother a lot of credit for her emotional contribution, which is why they say she built the house not out of physical effort, which the men probably did, but she created mental and emotional value. Giving so much credit to mental and emotional support is fascinating for me and also gives more value to the female people.

Two questions that I ask myself?

(1) How we can communicate other practices and communication in an understandable way? How can we recognize changes in the meaning of words?

(2) Why is emotional labor less valued in our western culture and how we can value it more?

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In the research article, "Emotional Capital and Other Ontologies of the Architect," the author states that emotion serves as a key framework for spatial design in Nubian society.

Interestingly, she discovered this through a shift in perspective. She stated she had to stop "being a scholar," and instead, dive back into her Nubian heritage to truly understand the emotional driving force in their architecture. She thinks her Western education often clashed with her native understanding of construction. As someone from the West, how do I take a similar shift in perspective? Who could I ask for insight into my own cultural architectural influences?

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If we stay with the premiss that design and architecture are running in circles with trying to formulate solutions, saturating the market with new materials and details as well as constant supposed progress, then acording to Alexander Grau, we are deconstructing our culture at the moment, moving towards hyper individualism. In times of post cultural state what only matters will be the inherent personal experience and cultures, since there is no stability within the culture of society apart form the acknowledgement of progress. this then brings us to the validity of emotional design. Emotional design, tackles exactly what has been missing within the fetish of progress, well they focused on engaging with our dopamine and serotonin to make us buy new stuff, but it did not engage with the world as something ephemeral, sublime to be experienced. Agha's emotional capital also touches hedgers "Dasein", a reevaluation of ou direct relationship with materiality and how we act upon and what we evoke within.

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Beautiful text. Menna Agha's challenges traditional Western understandings of "building" and the figure of the "architect" by examining placemaking through the lens of Nubian culture, particularly focusing on the unrecognized emotional contributions of women in post-displacement villages in Egypt. She introduces the concept of "emotional capital" as a crucial, yet often invisible, element in spatial production and argues for its recognition as a form of architectural labor. I relate deeply to her approach, being brought up by a matriarch and helping with the family-run business since a young age. Though the process of recently building two school campuses for my mother's school, I am certain the currency and motivation people act upon, especially in a small community in which each member has a strong emotional stake in, is not only financial or materialistic. Still the world we live in is ruled by capital and the strife to gain more. How could we translate or get inspired by what Agha lived, growing up in as a Nubian in post-displacement villages where she witnessed emotional drivers of building, into our system where ‘care’ has a marginal role in decision making. Or do we have to adapt, as Agha suggests, to see care, “not a part of a larger moral system, but (…) itself the system”?

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In Arturo Escobar's text "Designs for the Pluriverse, he describes the need of design as an capitalistic, modernistic rationalized expert driven process to transform into an participatory, socially oriented, situated, open endet and status quo challenging process. He sees the current commercialization of design as not just the problem but also the main hurdle of change.

He uses a text written by Gabriel García Márquez to illustrate the relationship of new technologies with the audience they are supposed to be for. And the permanent alternation of the excitement about the new and the disappointment of the former new.

This process, he describes as the main driving engine of modernity.

Escobar mentions that modern design is an entanglement of science, materials, technologies and capitalism that influences who we become.

He also describes the colonial aspect of design and Europas attitude towards their feeling of superiority over non European design approaches.

While the transition into modernism meant that design went from community generated to expert driven, we now have to find a way back to an inclusive process, where the designer is more of an mediator than an absolutist.

We are facing modern problems for wich there are no modern solutions.

Reading the text I was wondering how, in time where the believe of a good future through technology and enormous technocratic power bundles in the places like the silicon Vally and lately more often in governments, we can continue with community driven and participatory design? In a world where autocrats seem to be on the rise, does Escobars text still have his validity?