This book offers an interdisciplinary perspective on the precolonial to colonial transition in an urban context, by focusing on the changing distribution, character and role of public spaces and buildings. The volume focuses on three case study regions: East African coast, North-West Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula. The regions are selected to provide a novel perspective on the socio-spatial impact of colonialism on the public life of urban settlements, driven by different political forces, in different geographical contexts and time periods. The three study areas are also linked by sharing several features of urban lifestyle such as the role of trade and the influence of religion, Islam in particular.
The intertwined influence of socio-spatial urban characteristics on public life is presented on a range of case studies selected from Africa and southern Europe. The approaches are rooted in archaeological thinking on the built environment as material culture and incorporate critical interpretation of ethnographies and historical accounts on both the precolonial and colonial eras. This volume is of interest to archaeologists and researchers working in urban history, anthropology, and heritage.
Table of Content
Chapter 1. Introduction: public spaces in urban transformations (Monika Baumanova).- Chapter 2. Public spaces on the urban East African coast (Monika Baumanova).- Chapter 3. Public spaces in urban North-West Africa (Jan Pechota).- Chapter 4. Public spaces in ‘colonized’ urban Iberia (7
th – 17
th century) (Monika Baumanova, Daniel Krizek).- Chapter 5. Comparative perspectives on (pre)colonial transformations of urban public space (Monika Baumanova).
About the author
Monika Baumanova is a Lecturer at the Center for African Studies of the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. She is a historical archaeologist specializing on the built environment and urbanism, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa of the last millennium, and on approaches derived from urban studies and sensory archaeology. She is a former Marie Curie Individual Fellow and current Principal Investigator of a comparative urban morphology project funded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.
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