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Fiona Mager
Dissertation
"Contested Streets: Constructing Identities in Colonial Algiers and Dublin" (working title).
At the beginning of the 20th century, various groups used the public space of the street to fight for sovereignty in political and symbolic matters in Algiers and Dublin. Their ideological spectra are by no means easily separated into the dichotomy of loyal-imperialist and radical-nationalist but display a great variety of interpretations of "national" and "imperial". Che Guevara Boulevard and Rue Larbi Ben M'hidi in Algiers, as well as O'Connell Street and Dame Street in Dublin, depict these social turf wars between different groups in their respective microcosms. By changing the design and expanding the purpose of the streets' spaces, the meanings of certain symbolism, personalities, events and hence the interpretation of what was suggested to be “national” or “imperial” was constantly renegotiated. Apparent contradictions in the streets' designs not only illuminate this on the micro level of the city's history, but also bear witness to the ambivalence of French-Algerian and British-Irish relations on the macro level. The project hence aims to use the built environment and utilisation of public spaces to examine, firstly, varieties and changes in the interpretations of “national” and “imperial” identities, secondly, the connection between the built environment and identity politics in colonial empires and, thirdly, structural principles and underlying functional mechanisms of these political and social conflicts. To this end, the emergence of national movements and their effects on the configuration of streets in colonial Dublin and Algiers will be examined in a comparative perspective.