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This paper outlines certain benefits that spatial analysis offers to anthropological research, and shows how anthropology and related linguistic research may in turn contribute to the understanding of the social determinants of spatial order. It presents a case study of spatial order in a rural West African society. Although the examples are from a particular setting, the theoretical frame is a general one: the analysis will focus on the connections between social order, language, and the perception of space.

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This article takes the reader on a journey around the spaces of west African houses, and shows how the social world is replicated in the built environment. Based on the case study, this article argues that architecture serves as a model of the outside world to its inhabitants. 1 Knowledge about the social order is embodied by moving through the architectural space. In this particular case, the society's kinship system and kin relations are encoded in the compounds' architectural spaces. This article traces how this order is created, read, and reproduced by its inhabitants, and argues that the house serves as a model of the social (kinship) order. I article conclude by showing that the emic architectural model of the local kinship systems allows for a higher complexity than verbal descriptions can. This article contributes to an anthropology of the house and discusses questions of collective knowledge and memory. It offers considerations of the nature of emic models and cognitive maps, and explores how these maps are shared and reproduced.