Sociologie de l’espace habité en Algérie

Abstract

The notion of ""inhabiting"", developed during the second half of the 20th century, has made it possible to place the human individual at the center of spatial theories. However, this phenomenological-inspired notion also contributed to widening the gap between formal geography, which focused on spatial statistics and models of territorial production, and geography of spatial existence, aspiring to understand geographical space as a world lived by individuals. The objective of this thesis is to bridge this gap by articulating the two approaches, with a view to a better understanding of inhabited space in general and the Algerian territory, which served as the empirical field of investigation. As reflectors of urbanity, public spaces are today the object of increased attention on the part of developers and planners in a context of spatial production by society. This research analyzes the relationship that city dwellers have with their living spaces, which are essential in the structuring of public spaces. In effect, in their practices, in the projection of themselves in urban space, city dwellers participate in their production. These epistemological precepts allow us to approach the practices of public spaces through the concepts of appropriation and inhabitation, and to pay particular attention to the uses implemented by the inhabitants and users in their living spaces. This allows us to shed light on the meaning of appropriation of public spaces and to clarify the meanings related to representations. The Critical Realist approach was chosen as the research paradigm because it accepts external reality and shows the explanations that best produce desired results and uses mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) combining objective and subjective perspectives. This research focuses on the implementation of public space as a category of public action in Constantine. The first analysis is a comparison of policies, spaces produced, and the consideration of uses in the processes of space production. It shows how the city of Constantine, which has a ""spatiality"", seeks to structure the territories and its image (of spaces and uses). It keeps reasonable plasticity, which allows a considerable margin of maneuver in the construction of solutions for the development of spaces. In a second step, the thesis restores the construction of problems and solutions to public space planning. It demonstrates how the formalization of the category in a project through a system of action is done progressively throughout a process and at different scales of urban production. This progressive formalization is constrained by dependencies on the past, the context and the objectives. The research concludes that these practices face significant barriers and complexities under current conditions. However, they also offer rich insights into emerging modes of user-driven urbanism and city politics that resonate with Lefebvre's social project to produce space.