À Beira da Cidade: Política e Poética do Loteamento [On the edge of the city: politics and poetics of land subdivision]

Abstract

city that also was the object of a project by architect and anthropologist Salima Naji. Also focusing on Tiznit, Noha Gamal Said proposes a ‘senso-social’ (209) analysis of both soundscapes and inhabitants’ practices. Situated between ethnography and urban studies, this approach allows the reader to both understand the nature of urban space and to reflect on methodology. Echoing such reflections, the chapter by Salima Naji deciphers the responsibility of architects and planners, in dialogue with authorities and inhabitants, to choose areas to be restored or transformed. She insists on the fragile memory of places and on the similarly fragile link between inhabitants’ practices and the urban form vis-à-vis potentially violent interventions. The last chapter by Irène Carpentier, David Goeury, and Zakaria Kadiri and the general conclusion, points to the fragility of collective memory in historical oases, to the importance of a study through the method and concept of urban ambiances and on the dangers these unique spaces are presently facing, including the emergence of entrepreneurial attitudes to urban renovation that tend to ignore the spirit of collective governance and the notion of common good: ‘Living together and doing together were articulated in a network of constant community engagements that were always collectively debated (...) The entanglement of the modalities of negotiation was progressively broken by the development of new categories of public action in the name of rationality and technical progress’ (340). Overall, this highly interesting book constitutes an important contribution not only to knowledge about these areas, but also to the methodological reflection of urban research in general.