Ler História 48 / 2005
Special issue: Cities and Urban Spaces
Magda Pinheiro and Frédéric Vidal
Presentation
Urban territories
Magda Pinheiro
The «suburbia» between the old «arrabalde» and the «metrópole»: identity and temporal phenomenaMaria Alexandre Lousada
Spaciality in debate: social practices and representations in Lisbon at the end of Ancien RegimePaula Guilhermina Fernandes
City, household and work. Porto’s city centre in the early XIX century
Laurent Vidal
Indirect ways in the history of urban Brazil
Işık Tamdoğan
Neighbourhood (mahalle) in Ottoman space and in Turkey today: the town of Adana during the XVIII century
Urban itineraries
Frédéric Vidal
The assumption of the immobile city. Urban itineraries from a comparative point of view.
Alain Faure
Industrial employment in Paris and workers' places of residence (1860-1914): different distances and varied life styles
Urban representations
Jorge Fernandes Alves
Emigration and sanitarianism – Porto and Brazil in the XIX century
Nuno Pinheiro
Photographing the cities
Tiago Baptista
Nothing changed in my city. Lisbon in the cinema (1920’ to cinema novo)
An Agenda
Richard Rodger
The future of the urban past: new directions for British urban history
History and Computing
Carlos Maurício
Electronic resources for the study of the Nation, ethnicity and global society
Abstracts
Ler História 48 / 2005
The «suburbia» between the old «arrabalde» and the «metrópole»: identity and temporal phenomenaThis article describes the path of the words suburbio and metrópole in Portuguese. It also deals with the definition of Lisbon’s suburbs as special and temporal phenomena.
The sources to the case study of Almada, in the South bank of the Tagus River, are the local press and literature from 1850 up to 1930. The images of the local society are in particular studied in the so called faits divers. An image of decadence is detected around 1920 as the commuter’s suburb substituted the leisure towns. The conclusions points out that historical memory, constructed to underline patriotic heroism, tried to deal with this reality erasing local conflicts.
Spaciality in debate: social practices and representations in Lisbon at the end of Ancien RegimeThe conception of the city as a result of history in continuously transformation opens new perspectives in urban studies. The definition of «space socially produced» and «spaciality» are an important addition to a new outlook of the city. This article presents a short reading around these concepts articulated in three parts. First, a brief presentation of the path of history and urban geography; follows a presentation of space concepts, place and spaciality. Finally, is rehearsed an application of this new outlook in Lisbon at the end of Ancien Regime.
City, household and work. Porto’s city centre in the early XIX century
This paper addresses the active population subject, in an urban context, in the pre-industrial era. Crossing information obtained from a military census (list of Companhia de Ordenanças, Porto, 1800), regarding two central city parishes, Sé and Vitória, we focus the analysis on the composition of household and individual activity, trying to determine if we are facing an «adaptative family economy», somewhere between a production familiar economy and an employees’ economy. On the other side, the existence of a numerous sector of small trade and handicraft suggests a context of relative development of the involving rural areas; most likely stimulating the observed pulverized economical structure.
Indirect ways in the history of urban BrazilRelying on a recent evaluation of research carried out on the history of urban Brazil, this text explores several new tracks of thought. The stake here is to place the town as specific study object back to the core of the analyses; a town of which it was accepted that outlines are blurred and reorganization constant. In this respect, we consider that the research on urban genesis, urban temporality and on the multiplicity of social rhythm within the town is extremely promising.
Neighbourhood (mahalle) in Ottoman space and in Turkey today: the town of Adana during the XVIII centuryThe mahalle (neighbourhood) is an omnipresent notion in Ottoman towns as well as in those of Turkey today. Special attention will be done here to this pertinence through time and space. This frame of sociability which is also an expression of the ties linking the city dwellers to the town appears to be a configuration (made out of individuals’ related one to the others in different ways). On the other hand, observing that customs change less quickly than architecture and urban forms, let remind us that, far from being definitely disappeared, the neighbourhood (mahalle) is recomposing itself differently in Turkish towns today, which have still to search for equilibrium between the demand of security and liberty.
The assumption of the immobile city. Urban itineraries from a comparative point of view.
This article is based upon observations about the behaviours and way of life of a group of inhabitants of a Lisbon neighbourhood (Alcântara). The author proposes some operative solutions for social history of the cities based upon a comparative point of view. The study of the case of Alcântara could have led to the elaboration of an ambiguous model about the relative residential stability of the population in Lisbon. To compare residential motilities, we need indeed to locate social behaviours in relation with a larger group of constraints and stimulations. A change of perspective is then needed. More than the residential stability level, it is the value of the residential link that must be analysed.
Industrial employment in Paris and workers' places of residence (1860-1914): different distances and varied life stylesThis article addresses the question of the relations between home and workplace for the working class of Paris. French historiography today seems to take it for granted that at a time when the working day was very long and means of transport non-existent or prohibitively expensive, the worker and his family inevitably lived in the immediate vicinity of the workplace. In reality, this was not the case and many workers had always had to walk long and tiring distances every day. A truer picture then is one of different situations co-existing at the same time: for some, work space and dwelling space were one and the same; for others, the home was as far removed from the workplace as public transport would allow. This variety of situations results from the diversity of industrial activities in Paris and from individual choices or choices negotiated within the family. This article also constitutes a plea for a social history of transport, concentrating on its uses (or non-uses); up to now, in the study of transport systems, attention has primarily focused on the political decisions underpinning them.
Emigration and sanitarianism – Porto and Brazil in the XIX centuryEmigration was not only a demographic phenomenon but also a pathogenic exchange. Focusing a traditional destination, Porto-Brazil, during the XIX century, this article analyses the effect of the yellow fever and others epidemics (cholera, bubonic plague…) as representations on the migratory destination, the fear effect as dissuasion strategy, before the emergence of the new sanitary technologies of public health who overcame the epidemic disasters.
Photographing the citiesDuring the XIX century Portuguese photography is characterized like other cultural products by the «ruralismo» which believed in portraying life in the countryside as a more meaningful means of showing national character. This was a consequence of the importance of the rural elites, even when they had houses in the main cities, where they lived most of the time. In early XX century the new illustrated press had a strong need for images. These images were mainly of life in the streets of the cities. Urban middle classes were now closer to power. The two major Portuguese cities showed different images in photography. Lisbon was a city of small urban trades; Porto was a bourgeois city with bridges showing the modern times progress.
From the 1920/30’s Portugal lived a conservative dictatorship; there was a return to a rural image of the country. Only in the last decades of the dictatorship and with the democracy there was a return to an urban image.
Nothing changed in my city. Lisbon in the cinema (1920’ to cinema novo)This article proposes a brief history of the different ways the city of Lisbon has been depicted in Portuguese cinema until the early 1960’s. By the end of 1920’s, Lisbon had been quite often depicted as a space both physically and morally opposed to the many idealized rural communities seen in the silent movies of that same period. In the following decades, the city did became the place where the action of the so-called «comédias à portuguesa» took place, even tough the spaces and urban social practices depicted in these films where still rather bias to a rural and moral conception of the capital. On the other hand, the first movies of the «cinema novo» movement, being so much political and social engaged oeuvres as they were, elected the most modern urban places and the most conflicting urban social practices in Lisbon as a metaphor of the social and political claustrophobic atmosphere the country then lived in.
The future of the urban past: new directions for British urban history
This article ranges over the broad spectrum of British urban history published in the last forty years and seeks to identify opportunities and agendas for future research. It is a personal view based on eighteen years as editor of Urban History, as Director of the Centre for Urban History, and as a contributor to the recent publication of a three volume survey of British Urban History from 600-1950. From these standpoints, the essay concludes that despite consolidation and systematic study of British cities, there is a great deal of work remaining. A more ambitious embrace of digital technologies is identified as one future directions for the past; others include the use of oral and video interviews, an urgent need to address the post 1950 period, stronger emphasis on urban environmental history, and a more open-minded approach to the inclusion of Ireland as part of the urban system of the British Isles.