Ekistics data. Mapping Jaqueline Tyrwhitt’s abstracts of technical assistance, 1955–1972

Working from the second row in first-row institutions - the United Nations, the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), Harvard School of Design and more - the urban planner and academic Jaqueline Tyrwhitt was establishing an alternative knowledge network. 1957-1972 she edited the EKISTICS Journal, publishing more than 2000 reports and abstracts collected from grey publications by technical assistance actors at sites around the world, which became accessible to, and grew a community linking technical assistance experts and planners with locals and practitioners. Using social network analysis through the open version of the relationship mapping tool kumu, this paper analyses the content and authorship of the abstracts published in EKISTICS under Tyrwhitt's editorship. Using her annotated lists of collections of published and unpublished literature on technical assistance, the paper illustrates Tyrwhitt's contribution to a growing South-North exchange. Then, by visualizing the geographies of knowledge network created through EKISTICS and its predecessor, Tropical Housing and Planning, its reach and influence become legible. The paper further claims that due to geopolitical discourses and Tyrwhitt's evolving personal role there had been a changing language of individual abstracts in EKISTICS as the journal moved from materials and physical planning towards cybernetics, governance and economics.