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- Title
THE CRISSCROSS OF GRIDDED TRADITIONS IN TWO SENEGALESE CITIES.
- Authors
BIGON, LIORA; ROSS, ERIC
- Abstract
In Western (Eurocentric) research traditions of urban history and planning history, sub-Saharan Africa is generally denied an urban past, a history and culture of urban settlement-design and especially of indigenous use of urban grid plans. It is against this historiographic lacuna that cases of indigenous grid-pattern settlement in Senegal and Western Sudan are briefly described and contrasted to the gridded tradition of colonial settlement-design. In light of the diffusionist problematic which seeks a supposed singular 'origin' for the grid plan, it is demonstrated that not only did the urban grid plan emerge independently in the Western Sudan, but also that questions about the grid's origin in terms of 'whose heritage?' are still of theoretical relevance and cultural sensitivity in Area Studies research, particularly in African Studies. However, in shifting the discussion from the genealogy of the grid towards a more dialectic approach of spatial production, this article also provides short qualitative insights into the dynamic entanglement of top-down and bottom-up urban design traditions, Westerncum-indigenous, in such important contemporary Senegalese cities as Dakar and Touba.
- Subjects
SENEGALESE; EUROCENTRISM; URBAN planning; HISTORIOGRAPHY; GENEALOGY; QUALITATIVE research
- Publication
Architext, Journal of Architecture (AJA), 2019, Vol 7, p94
- ISSN
2415-4792
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.26351/ARCHITEXT/7/15