About

Mariel Gruszko is a cultural anthropologist investigating the relationship between democracy and urban design.

Dr. Gruszko is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California San Diego’s Institute of Arts & Humanities and an American Council of Learned Societies Emerging Voices Fellow. She is at work on a book, Architecting Participation: Design as Practical Democracy in Barcelona. The manuscript tackles the problems of inclusion and participation by examining how Barcelona residents, activists, and experts navigate hierarchy and equality as they remake their city. Through examples including municipal-sponsored participatory planning and design processes, grassroots-organized care for vacant lots and abandoned buildings, and eco-architectural experiments with “kilometer zero” construction materials, Dr. Gruszko investigates how interactions between neighbors and their urban landscapes shape what democracy is and can be.

Dr. Gruszko received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California Irvine in 2019. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her partner. At UC San Diego, Dr. Gruszko is a member of the Nature, Space, and Politics Working Group. In Spring 2021 she will be teaching an upper-level seminar for undergraduates, The Healthy Body and the City.