Recovering Sociology from the Trash Heap: Of Waste Politics and the Spatialization of Local Representation in Lagos

This article excavates the debate that unfolded during the 1980s between Jacques Rancière and Pierre Bourdieu to shed light on the theoretical divide that still cuts across the field of urban studies today. Looking at contemporary Rancièrian scholarship through a Bourdieusian lens, it points to their main theoretical shortcomings and reasserts the value of relational, field‐based and empirically grounded approaches to urban politics. At the same time, this article engages seriously Rancière's critique of Bourdieu's failure to account for space in order to question the territoriality inherent to the notion of field. We put this theoretical discussion to the test of Lagos's garbage. Drawing on an ethnographic study conducted in Lagos from 2015 to 2016, we propose analyzing the process of spatialization of the field of local representation by looking at the ways solid waste—here conceived as a political opportunity—is mobilized by different actors. We argue that the deployment of a waste infrastructure in Lagos is congruent with a relative disinvestment in practices of territorial control that reshapes the structure of local representation, reconfiguring the ‘stage’ on which politics is played out in the Nigerian metropolis.     

Reassembling Lesseps Square,Rethinking Barcelona: A More‐than‐Human Approach

This article discusses the great paradox of the planning of public spaces in Barcelona. While for years the city's residents, politicians and experts have been steeped in democratizing, participatory discourses, the interminable controversies almost all the council's initiatives in the streets and squares of Barcelona have aroused are evidence of a clear short‐circuit. Somehow this participatory‐democratic consensus has run up against a collective discord which, in my view, indicates the incapacity of the current channels and mechanisms of citizen participation to truly give shape to a more democratic city, one which does not block dissent or stand in the way of the possible. I discuss this short‐circuit through a case study, the Lesseps Square controversy, including a methodological and epistemological debate which, in order to study how the square was reassembled in practice after the participatory remodeling process, puts forward an actor‐network‐theory‐inspired approach to the study of public space. I argue that Barcelona, a city whose public institutions are deeply committed to creating channels for residents to participate in public processes, is at the same time enacting a closure of its public spaces. My contention here is that the urban environment is already distributed (in Rancière's sense) before it is given over to participation, and that this prevents the emergence of a (more‐than‐human) demos that could redistribute public space by taking account of innumerable unrepresented parties.     

Urbanization and the City Image in Lowry at Tate Britain: Towards a Critique of Cultural Cityism

This article explores cultural cityism at a time when a more expansive, ‘planetary’ urbanization is argued to have superseded ‘the city’ as the dominant urban form. It takes an essentially Lefebvrian problematic and works this through an examination of one aspect of contemporary metropolitan culture, the L.S. Lowry exhibition at Tate Britain, held in the summer of 2013. The article scrutinizes the juxtaposition of Lowry's images of the industrial city with the image of ‘global’, corporate London provided by Tate Britain itself. The exhibition is presented as evidence of Lefebvre's argument that although the urban core has imploded and exploded, through images the city ‘can perpetuate itself, survive its conditions’. Taking stock also of the preponderance of city images in culture more widely, it is argued such images make a fetish of the city, producing also an ‘urban pastoral’ that obscures the defining characteristics of urban life today. Finally, Benjamin's concept of the ‘dialectical image’ and Rancière's notion of the ‘sentence image’ are invoked to capture the flashing together of past and present city images and the opportunities for critical reflection this constellation presents.     

Urban Political Ecologies and Children's Geographies: Queering Urban Ecologies of Childhood

This article focuses on the material and discursive constructions of nature and children in the city. While dominant representations and idealizations of nature and childhood depend on the binary logic of the nature/culture and rural/urban divide, there is also a simplification and romanticization of nature in children's geographies and a lack of children and their spaces in urban political ecology. We argue that children and nature in cities need to be removed from a binary model of being and attended to in more nuanced ways in urban political ecology and children's geographies. In this regard, we suggest that both nature and children in cities need to be queered. We need to ask how the production of urban spaces (re)creates particular romantic and idealized relations with natures that reify the binaries between nature/culture, and male/female through a heteronormative framework. The purpose of this article is to bring the critical nature–society theories of urban political ecology into conversation with work in children's geographies that explores the ‘nature' of childhood, and in doing so queer the relationship between children and nature. Drawing on research on queer ecologies, and queered childhoods, we aim to provide a framework to rethink and queer both nature and children in cities.     

The Born‐Again Favela: The Urban Informality of Pentecostalism in Rio de Janeiro

Since the 1980s, the metropolitan spaces of Brazil have seen a significant upsurge of the Christian Pentecostal movement, which today dominates the religious landscape of the favelas. In Rio de Janeiro, the rise of Pentecostalism coincided with the establishment of drug gangs as actors controlling favela territories. Based on an ethnographic field study conducted in a favela complex in the city's Zona Norte, this article examines the role and significance of the Pentecostal churches in Rio's favelas, both in everyday urban life and in the ways these areas are governed. One of my focal points of analysis is the increasing entanglement of actors in the drug industry and church actors. The article posits that the Pentecostal churches' role and significance, their institutional shape and their followers' practices are inextricably intertwined with the favela's social, spatial and political structural patterns. It shows the ways in which the evolving Pentecostal movement has permeated all aspects of the favela's informal way of urban life and government and has produced a new urban religious configuration in which the Pentecostal movement and the favela are intertwined and transform each other.     

Socio‐politically polarized contexts,urban mobilization and the environmental movement: a comparative study of two campaigns of protest in Northern Ireland

This article uses a structural approach to the investigation of the continuity and discontinuity between ‘old’ urban and ‘new’ environmental protest, opening further space for analysis of the relationship between different mobilizations in Northern Ireland. In particular, I suggest that the ‘novelty’ and strength of social movements' challenges can be assessed in terms of their capacity to promote participation and cooperation between the opposite poles of established cleavages, especially when one engages in the analysis of socio‐politically polarized contexts. In this article I focus on two mobilizations. On the one hand, I show that the first Westlink protest of the 1970s was not the product of an integrated social movement but, rather, of a heterogeneous and instrumental coalition of urban and political actors which gained no support from formal environmental organizations and soon split along the national‐religious divide. On the other hand, I show that the current Westlink campaign is the product of a cohesive network, which cuts across the many socio‐political cleavages of Northern Ireland, linking together local, urban and community groups, conservation and environmental organizations, associations, universities, political actors and parties, of opposing national‐religious identity. I then take these two patterns of mobilization as a dependent variable and explain them by drawing on theories of resource mobilization, new social movements, framing and political opportunity structure. Cet article applique une démarche structurelle à l'examen de la continuité et discontinuité entre ‘ancienne’ contestation urbaine et ‘nouvelle’ contestation environnementale, dégageant ainsi un espace qui permet d'analyser le lien entre diverses mobilisations en Irlande du Nord. Il suggère notamment que la ‘nouveauté’ et l'intensité des défis lancés par les mouvements sociaux peuvent s'évaluer en termes de capacitéà favoriser participation et coopération entre les pôles opposés de clivages établis, en particulier si l'on s'intéresse aux contextes socio‐politiques polarisés. Deux mobilisations sont approfondies. D'une part, la première manifestation du Westlink dans les années 1970 ne résultait pas d'un mouvement social intégré, mais plutôt d'une coalition hétérogène et pragmatique d'acteurs politiques et urbains, laquelle n'a jamais reçu le soutien d'organismes officiels de protection de l'environnement et s'est rapidement divisée en suivant la fracture nationale religieuse. D'autre part, la campagne actuelle du Westlink est le produit d'un réseau cohérent, qui transcende les nombreux clivages socio‐politiques d'Irlande du Nord, reliant groupes locaux, urbains et communautés, organismes de protection et de défense de l'environnement, associations, universités, acteurs et partis politiques, tous d'identités nationales et religieuses différentes. Ces deux schémas de mobilisation sont ensuite repris en tant que variables dépendantes, et explicitées à partir des théories sur la mobilisation des ressources, les nouveaux mouvements sociaux, les cadres et la structure politique des opportunités.     

The Self‐Help Myth: Towards a Theory of Philanthropy as Consensus Broker

This article presents a theoretical and methodological approach to studying how philanthropic power is maintained through the process of negotiating consensus between greatly unequal partners such as wealthy funders and social movement leaders. It is proposed that grant agreements between private foundations and social movement organizations construct idealized spaces of public participation and discursive theories of change that draw attention away from structural inequality and antagonism, ultimately generating consent. Drawing upon archival and ethnographic research on philanthropic investments in addressing migrant poverty in California's Central Valley, the article shows how consensus between foundation staff and farmworker and immigrant organizers promote funding frameworks that exclude questions that challenge relationships of power and systems of agricultural production that contribute to enduring poverty across the region. The Gramscian conceptual frames of “discursive power,” “hegemony as politics,” and “strategic articulation” are presented as a theoretical framework from which to understand the power of private philanthropy as consensus broker during historical moments of crisis.     

The ‘Urban Age’ in Question

Foreboding declarations about contemporary urban trends pervade early twenty‐first century academic, political and journalistic discourse. Among the most widely recited is the claim that we now live in an ‘urban age’ because, for the first time in human history, more than half the world's population today purportedly lives within cities. Across otherwise diverse discursive, ideological and locational contexts, the urban age thesis has become a form of doxic common sense around which questions regarding the contemporary global urban condition are framed. This article argues that, despite its long history and its increasingly widespread influence, the urban age thesis is a flawed basis on which to conceptualize world urbanization patterns: it is empirically untenable (a statistical artifact) and theoretically incoherent (a chaotic conception). This critique is framed against the background of postwar attempts to measure the world's urban population, the main methodological and theoretical conundrums of which remain fundamentally unresolved in early twenty‐first century urban age discourse. The article concludes by outlining a series of methodological perspectives for an alternative understanding of the contemporary global urban condition.     

Urban land rent theory: a regulationist perspective

Whilst real estate capital became a driving force in analyses of urban development, urban land rent theory has made only very limited progress during the past decade. There are a number of reasons for this – such as a weak conceptualization of the role of political agency, for example. Hence, a way out of this relative stagnation, by attempting to systematically develop an integrated view on structure and agency in the context of urban land rent, is offered in this article. Advances in critical theory, thinking about space and dialectic reasoning contribute to the development of a new perspective on land rent. Land rent is conceptualized as a middle‐range theory. In order to bring together concrete urban phenomena with the general process of political‐economic development, a systematic link between land rent theory and the theoretical apparatus of the French Regulation School is developed. The reformulation of land rent theory from a regulationist perspective underlines the importance of the institutional context (and its changes) for an understanding of rent and its role in the urban context. In so doing, land rent theory proves to be a very useful tool for providing an integrated political‐economic perspective for analyses of urban phenomena. This is illustrated briefly in the cases of Vienna and Montevideo. Si le capital immobilier est devenu un point central des analyses du développement urbain, la théorie n'a guère progressé au cours de la dernière décennie. Plusieurs facteurs sont en cause, telle la faible conceptualisation du rôle politique d'agence. Cet article propose donc une porte de sortie à cette relative stagnation, en tentant de construire systématiquement une vision intégrée de la structure et l'agence dans le cadre de la rente urbaine. Les progrès en matière de théorie critique, réflexion en termes d'espace et raisonnement dialectique facilitent l'élaboration d'une nouvelle perspective sur la location foncière, laquelle est conceptualisée en tant que théorie intermédiaire. Afin de regrouper phénomènes urbains concrets et processus général d'aménagement politico‐économique, une relation systématique est établie entre la théorie sur la rente foncière et l'appareil théorique de l'École Française de Régulation. Reformuler la théorie sur la rente foncière d'un point de vue régulationiste souligne combien le contexte institutionnel (et ses changements) est important pour comprendre la rente et son rôle dans le cadre urbain. Ce faisant, la théorie sur la rente foncière se révèle un outil très utile pour créer une perspective politico‐économique intégrée permettant d'analyser les phénomènes urbains. Cet aspect est brièvement illustré dans les cas de Vienne et Montevideo.     

Divergence in HR Functional Roles in Local Government

Abstract

In spite of a growing body of research on the position and role of HRM and the HR function in organizations, local government HRM has not received the attention it deserves. This article contributes to research on the role of the HR function by deploying a discursive perspective on how HR managers construct their function's role in the context of Finnish local government. Five discourses are located in the talk of HR managers, which show emerging discursive tensions and contradictions in the roles of the HR function in local government.     

Urban Elites in England: New Models of Executive Governance

Political leadership has become a much more explicit and widespread feature of English urban governance than it was 20 years ago. It has become particularly high profile since the Labour Government came into power in 1997 and sponsored legislation (Local Government Act 2000) which required all English local authorities to replace or modify the existing committee system of decision‐making by adopting one of four prescribed options, the thrust of which was to strengthen executive governance. This article considers the legislative drivers for change against the backdrop of long‐established cultural traditions, most notably the continued dominance of the party group which, in many ways, is inimical to the exercise of individual political leadership. It is argued that the way local authorities develop new models of executive governance reflects the local political culture. In other words the ‘locality effect’ assumes considerable importance when considering new patterns of executive governance in urban England. This article explores the interplay between the changing operational and institutional context and the resilient traditions of party group behaviour. It concludes that, while over a period of time there is likely to be considerable change in the patterns of urban political leadership, the rate of progress to that end will be highly differential. Au Royaume‐Uni, le leadership politique est devenu une caractéristique de la gouvernance urbaine bien plus nette et courante qu'il y a vingt ans. Elle est proéminente depuis l'accession au pouvoir du gouvernement travailliste en 1997, lequel a soutenu une législation (Local Government Act, 2000) exigeant de toutes les autorités locales britanniques qu'elles remplacent ou modifient leur système décisionnel de commissions en adoptant l'une des quatre options établies visant au renforcement de la gouvernance exécutive. L'article s'intéresse aux moteurs législatifs du changement sur fond de longues traditions culturelles, notamment de dominance persistante du groupe du parti qui, à bien des égards, est hostile à l'exercice d'un leadership politique personnel. La manière dont les autorités locales élaborent des modèles originaux de gouvernance pour l'exécutif traduit la culture politique locale. Autrement dit, ‘l'incidence locale’ revêt une importance considérable lorsqu'on s'attache aux nouveaux modèles de gouvernance exécutive dans l'Angleterre urbaine. L'article explore l'interaction entre le contexte opérationnel et institutionnel évolutif et les traditions résistantes du comportement de parti. En conclusion, si les modèles de leadership politique urbain connaîtront sans doute une vaste transformation au fil des années, la vitesse de progression de celle‐ci sera très diversifiée.     

Technifying Public Space and Publicizing Infrastructures: Exploring New Urban Political Ecologies through the Square of General Vara del Rey

The aim of this article is to explore new ways of integrating technology, nature and infrastructures into urban public spaces. This is done through a case study, the design of General Vara del Rey, which is offered here as a model to explore a novel urban political ecology that calls into question dominant definitions of public spaces as self‐contained sites operating independently of natural and infrastructural spaces. Through the double movement of ‘the technification of public space’ and ‘the publicization of infrastructures’, the square aims to rethink the political ecology of urban public spaces by enabling the effective incorporation and participation of infrastructural and natural elements as active actors into the public and political life of the community. It is argued that the transformation of infrastructures into fully visible, public and political agents provides a useful model to address the growing proliferation of infrastructural and technological elements onto contemporary urban surfaces and to open up the possibility of new forms of civic participation and engagement.     

Urban Vigilantism: A Study of Anti‐Terror Law,Politics and Policing in Istanbul

Focusing on the case of young socialist vigilantes who were arrested and imprisoned as ‘terrorists’ in 2007, this article illustrates how vigilantism in working‐class neighbourhoods of Istanbul with a high Alevi population evolved from an unarmed, public and participatory form of vigilantism to an armed one, and discusses the role of the anti‐terror law in this transformation. The article illustrates the ways in which the anti‐terror law, by narrowing the space for civil politics, paved the way for youth engagement in violent forms of extra‐legal security practice in spaces occupied by the historically stigmatized working‐class Alevi population. The article also argues that, over the last decade, Turkey’s ruling elites have used the anti‐terror law to wage a war against the oppositional politics conducted by the country’s historically stigmatized populations (such as Kurds and Alevis). Not only has this war put politically active and respected local figures from these communities behind bars, it also ‘polices’ (à la Rancière) these communities. Accordingly, the article illustrates how the law that considers attempts at self‐governance as a threat to state sovereignty effectively intervenes in local politics and space, leading to the reconfiguration of political space at the local level.     

The co‐optation of squatters in Amsterdam and the emergence of a movement meritocracy: a critical reply to Pruijt

This article explains how and why the relationship between the Amsterdam squatter movement and the local government has changed over the last decade. Besides reassessing Pruijt's analysis of the Amsterdam squatter movement in a recent issue of this journal, the article also engages with the post‐Fordist literature on social movements. This literature is largely based on the assumption that a subversive identity is incompatible with co‐optation. However, as such ‘soft factors’ as culture gain more importance in urban growth strategies, it is likely that some segments of urban movements may become co‐opted while retaining their subversive identity. It is hypothesized that we are witnessing the emergence of a movement meritocracy: with the rise of soft neoliberal urban policies, the way in which the local polity delivers incentives follows an increasingly discriminatory pattern, giving a place to those segments that contribute to the cultural vibrancy of the city whilst ignoring segments that struggle for basic provisions. These processes are probably not peculiar to Amsterdam and there is an urgent need for post‐Fordist and other social movement theory to investigate what are the consequences of these shifts for government‐movement interactions. Comment et pourquoi la relation entre le mouvement des squatters d'Amsterdam et le gouvernement local a‐t‐elle changé au cours de la dernière décennie? Outre l'examen de l'analyse qu'a faite Pruijt du mouvement des squatters d'Amsterdam dans un récent numéro de cette revue, l'article s'appuie sur la littérature post‐fordiste des mouvements sociaux. Celle‐ci se fonde surtout sur l'hypothèse qu'une identité subversive est incompatible avec une cooptation. Or, comme les ‘facteurs intangibles’ tels que la culture prennent de l'importance dans les stratégies d'expansion urbaine, il est probable que certains segments des mouvements urbains pourront être cooptés tout en gardant leur nature subversive. On suppose l'apparition d'une méritocratie des mouvements: avec l'essor des politiques urbaines néolibérales de compromis, la manière dont le gouvernement local propose des mesures d'incitation suit un modèle de plus en plus discriminatoire, donnant une place aux segments qui contribuent à la vibration culturelle de la ville, tout en ignorant ceux qui luttent pour des services de base. Les processus n'étant sans doute pas propres à Amsterdam, il est urgent que les théories des mouvements sociaux, post‐fordistes ou autres, étudient les conséquences de ces changements dans les interactions entre gouvernement et mouvements.     

Forging a ‘new’ organizational infrastructure for Los Angeles’ progressive community

What margins of maneuverability do urban‐based progressive movements have for affecting policy outcomes in entrepreneurial and neoliberal political systems? This article provides a partial answer to this question by examining how relations developed and stabilized between actors in the different sectors (community based organizations, labor, university) of Los Angeles’ progressive community. Such relations are a necessary but not sufficient condition for affecting policy outcomes. I argue that these relations have resulted from a 20‐year process of interactions between the more innovative agents of each of the sectors. Through their repeated experimentation in building frameworks to coordinate their partnerships, I argue that a variety of complex mechanisms have taken shape that nourish relations and coordinate complex forms of collective action. Functioning as ‘relational platforms’, these coordinating mechanisms have combined to form an emergent ‘organizational infrastructure’ that facilitates both ongoing relational processes and the mobilization of collective resources in politically effective ways. Thus, by examining the organizational infrastructure that makes such a broad based ‘movement’ possible and sustainable, the article offers the reader one insight into how urban progressives have been able to build the power necessary to affect policies in one of the world's most entrepreneurial and neoliberal cities.     

Politicizing Undocumented Immigrants One Corner at a Time: How Day Laborers Became a Politically Contentious Group

This article examines how undocumented immigrants become politicized and evolved into a relatively powerful group in the United States. It does so by examining the evolution of day laborers from their humble beginnings in a Los Angeles suburb in the early 1990s into an important component of the national immigrant rights movement today. It addresses the issue by examining the strategic importance of the ‘urban' in enabling stigmatized individuals like undocumented day laborers to overcome major barriers and establish themselves as a vocal and potent group in the public sphere. It suggests that once this group gained a foothold and a sense of itself through urban relational spaces, it experienced enhanced capacities to make rights claims in local and national political arenas. The article uses a case study of immigrant activism in Pasadena and Los Angeles, California, and draws special attention to the evolution of the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON).     

The Limits to Artist‐Led Regeneration: Creative Brownfields in the Cities of High Culture

Despite the burgeoning literature on creative cities, seldom explored is the context of cities rich in cultural capital but more orthodox in their approach to preserving the autonomy of culture. This article discusses the status of artistic spaces occupying abandoned industrial premises (‘creative brownfields') in historic cities that traditionally shape their policies around prestigious cultural institutions (‘cities of high culture'). Based on comparative insights from St Petersburg and Lausanne, the article explores the relations and tensions between mainstream cultural governance and creative brownfields. While there is no lack of creative brownfields in these cities, their wider urban impact is found to be marginal; moreover, these sites represent dispersed instances of temporary occupations rather than situated clusters of creative actors. More than coincidental, this (lack of) spatialization is argued to result from a particular governmentality—that of high culture—which disregards, rather than promotes, spaces of alternative cultural governance. The article conceptualizes creative brownfields in cities of high culture as the ‘soft infrastructure' of cultural production, in contrast with those in ‘creative cities' as the ‘hard infrastructure' of urban production. The article also calls for a recognition of the local context of regulation and accumulation in understanding the cultural/urban interplay.     

Spaces of the Expelled as Spaces of the Urban Commons? Analysing the Re‐emergence of Squatting Initiatives in Rome

Asserting the need to acknowledge the role of the current crisis and austerity politics in fostering the re‐emergence of squatting initiatives in Rome, this article brings together the literature on squatting as an urban social movement, notably Martínez López's holistic approach, with a political economy perspective analysing the current stage of ‘late neoliberalism’. In so doing, I use the conceptualization of ‘expulsions’ developed by Sassen to show how emerging squatting initiatives in Rome represent the ‘spaces of the expelled’. Focusing on the case of Communia in San Lorenzo neighbourhood, the article shows how Martínez López's approach is able to account for the rapid success and support enjoyed by Communia, going as it does beyond the ‘single‐issue’ perspective that has dominated much of the squatting literature. Indeed, the main claims addressed by Communia activists concern a plurality of issues grouped around the concept of urban commons, as both a practice and a goal. Methodologically, the article is the result of 18 months of fieldwork based on an activist/participatory action research (PAR) approach, comprising participant observation/observant participation, in‐depth interviews and questionnaires.     

Delivering Flagship Projects in an Era of Regulatory Capitalism: State‐led Privatization and the London Olympics 2012

Much of the urban studies literature on the London Olympics has focused on its social legacies and the top‐down nature of policy agendas. This article explores one element that has been less well covered — the contractual dynamics and delivery networks that have shaped infrastructure provision. Drawing on interviews and freedom of information requests, this article explores the mechanisms involved in the project's delivery and their implications for broader understandings of urban politics and policymaking. It assesses contemporary writings on regulatory capitalism, public–private networks and new contractual spaces to frame the empirical discussion. This article argues that the London Olympic model has been characterized by the prioritization of delivery over representative democracy. Democratic imperatives, such as those around sustainability and employment rights, have been institutionally re‐placed and converted into contractual requirements on firms. This form of state‐led privatization of the development process represents a new, and for some, potentially more effective mode of governance than those offered by traditional systems of regulation and management.     

Political tuning in Ankara,a capital,as reflected in its urban symbols and images

Determining the ‘tensions, conflicts and social changes’ in the city through symbolic configurations and shifting images has been a recent dimension in the study of urban culture. This is the perspective taken in this article. A brief introduction of Turkey and Atatürk is followed by a study of urban symbols. Starting with those of the Ottoman period, these include monuments and statues; the names of city squares, parks and shops; and the street names and official city emblems since the settlement became the capital in 1923. The city itself was the symbol of national independence and the new republic in the 1920s and 1930s. Fluctuations over the years, in the preference for certain names or artefacts, reflect the shifts from nation-building to clashes of political ideologies and, more recently, an ‘identity crisis’ that the nation has overtly been experiencing. The study is based on observations that are supported by publications from libraries and private collections, including memoirs. Further material has been provided by informal talks with people from all backgrounds, including the recollections of the author Erdentug, who has lived in the city since 1956, and the reminiscences of her parents commencing twenty years before this date. — Une dimension récente des études de la culture urbaine est la détermination des ‘tensions, conflits et changements sociaux’ dans la ville par les configurations symboliques et les images changeantes. C’est la perspective adoptée dans cet article. Une introduction rapide de la Turquie et de Ataturk précède une étude des symboles urbains. Commençant par ceux de l’époque ottomane, ils comprennent des monuments et des statues, les noms des places, parcs et magasins, les noms de rues et les emblèmes officiels de la ville depuis qu’elle est devenue la capitale en 1923. La ville elle-même symbolisait l’indépendance nationale et la nouvelle république dans les années vingt et trente. Au cours des années, les changements de la préference pour certains noms ou articles reflètent les changements allant de la construction de la nation à des conflits d’idéologies politiques et, plus récemment, à une ‘crise d’identité’ que la nation a éprouvé ouvertement. Cette étude est basée sur des observations supportées par des publications de bibliothèques et de collections privées, y compris des mémoires. D’autres matériels viennent de conversations informelles avec des personnes de tous milieux, y compris les souvenirs de l’auteur Erdentug qui habite dans la ville depuis 1956, et ceux de ses parents qui remontent à vingt ans plus tôt.