Exploring the design of Dakar as a regional capital, the book delves into the interplay between French colonial doctrines of assimilation and association and their impact on planning and architectural policies in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines how these ideologies influenced the development of urban spaces, offering insights into the broader implications of colonialism on architecture and regional identity.
This volume examines the discursive relations between indigenous, colonial and post-colonial legacies of place-naming in Africa in terms of the production of urban space and place. It is conducted by tracing and analysing place-naming processes, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa during colonial times (British, French, Belgian, Portuguese), with a considerable attention to both the pre-colonial and post-colonial situations. By combining in-depth area studies research – some of the contributions are of ethnographic quality – with colonial history, planning history and geography, the authors intend to show that culture matters in research on place names. This volume goes beyond the recent understanding obtained in critical studies of nomenclature, normally based on lists of official names, that place naming reflects the power of political regimes, nationalism, and ideology.