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The Paradox around the Social Representations of Compressed Earth Block Building Material in Burkina Faso: The Material for the Poor or the Luxury Material?

Compressed earth brick (CEB) is a masonry material which has the thermal 
properties that are better adapted to the hot and dry climate of tropical and 
Sahelian context like in Burkina Faso. Despite these advantages, CEB are still 
not largely used in the construction sector in the city of Ouagadougou. In 
order to better understand the obstacles linked to this low diffusion of CEB, 
the present empirical study proposes a deep analysis of the social 
representations of construction using CEB in the urban place. The results show 
that four main categories of social representations coexist in the construction 
sector using CEB: 1) the perception of CEB as the “material for the poor”, 2) 
the perception of CEB as “improved or 
precarious adobe” inherited from successive public policies to 
rehabilitate the material, 3) the symbolic perceptions linked to the red color 
of the brick and the durability of the material, and 4) the contemporary 
post-materialist perception (luxury materials), according to a minority of 
wealthy elites who have built their houses using CEB. These social 
representations are essential to take into consideration for the implementation 
of new public housing policies in general and promotion for the usage of CEB in 
particular. This could accompany the studies which aim at improving the 
technical performances of CEB and lead towards the socio-economic acceptance of 
the materials.