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Physical Space and Spatiality in Muslim Societies: Notes on the Social Production of Cities
Mahbub Rashid
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Mahbub Rashid embarks on a fascinating journey through urban space in all of its physical and social aspects, using the theories of Foucault, Bourdieu, Lefebvre, and others to explore how consumer capitalism, colonialism, and power disparity consciously shape cities. Using two Muslim cities as case studies, Algiers (Ottoman/French) and Zanzibar (Ottoman/British), Rashid shows how Western perceptions can only view Muslim cities through the lens of colonization—a lens that distorts both physical and social space. Is it possible, he asks, to find a useable urban past in a timeline broken by colonization? He concludes that political economy may be less relevant in premodern cities, that local variation is central to the understanding of power, that cities engage more actively in social reproduction than in production, that the manipulation of space is the exercise of power, that all urban space is a conscious construct and is therefore not inevitable, and that consumer capitalism is taking over everyday life. Ultimately, we reconstruct a present from a fragmented past through local struggles against the homogenizing power of abstract space.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Introduction
Part I: On Physical Space and Spatiality
Chapter 1. A Brief Intellectual History of Physical Space
Chapter 2. Describing Physical Space and Spatiality in Cities
Chapter 3. Theorizing the Social Production of Physical Space and Spatiality in Cities
Chapter 4. Approaches to Study the Social Production of Physical Space and Spatiality in Cities
Part II: On Physical Space and Spatiality in Traditional Muslim Societies
Chapter 5. Physical Space and Spatiality in Traditional Muslim Societies
Chapter 6. Physical Space and Spatiality in Ottoman Algiers
Chapter 7. Physical Space and Spatiality in Omani Zanzibar
Figure 6.14. The casernas, zawiyas, hammams, mosques, and city gates of Ottoman Algiers. Created by the author based on Nabila Cherif-Seffadj, “Waqf et gestion des bains publics à Alger durant la période ottomane (XVIe-XIXe siècle),” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée [En ligne], 119–120 | novembre 2007, mis en ligne le 06 mars 2012, consulté le 24 décembre 2018. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/4273.
Figure 6.16. The diagram illustrates the main transformations of Ottoman Algiers and the urban expansion of Algiers by the end of the nineteenth century: (1) The creation of a place of arms (renamed Place du Gouvernement then Place des Martyrs after independence) in the center of the lower part of the casbah; (2) the widening of Bab Azoun, Bab el Oued; (3) the Navy (present-day rue d’El Mourabitine); (4) the Chartres (present-day Amar El Kama Street) streets; (5) the Rue de la Lyre (now rue Bouzrina Arezki); (6) the Boulevard de l’Empress (currently Boulevard Ernesto Che Guevara); (7) the Rue del la Marine; (8) the Rues Randon and Marengo; (9) the Boulevard de la Victoire; (10) the replacement of the old Ottoman walls with new boulevards; and (11) the construction of the French wall defining the new intramural city. (Created by the Author based on A. Hadjilah, “L’architecture des premières maisons européennes d’Alger, 1830–1865.” Artl@s Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2016): Article 2, Figure 3; and Z. Çelik, Urban Forms and Colonial Confrontations: Algiers Under French Rule, fig. 17. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.)
Figure 6.17. The diagram shows the changes made to the streets of Ottoman Algiers by the French during the nineteenth century. The streets shown in solid lines are the old Ottoman streets, and those shown in dotted lines were taken out by the French. As a result, three different street morphologies can be observed in the old city: (1) an area with almost no morphological change; (2) an area with moderate morphological change; and (3) an area that does not preserve the old street morphology. (Created by the author.)
Figure 6.18. Representative samples of street system and building fabric from (a) the upper part, (b) the middle part, and (c) the lower part (or, the Marine Quarter) of Ottoman Algiers in the colonial phase. (Created by the author.)
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