Algerian Routes, urban spaces. Examples of emancipation
and deterritorialisation of middle classes in global market
Based on fieldwork in some Mediterranean and North-european cities (in
particular Marseilles and Istanbul) this paper wants to describe how the process
of globalization fragments and shapes the urban social space. The development of
market places and transnational trade connecting South, East and North, the
combination of migration routes, disaporic establishment of migrant minorities
(Moroccan in Italia and Belgium, Turkish and Libanese in Germany, Algerian
and Sephardic in France, Kurdish and Armenian in Istanbul….), in connection
with the delocalised industrial areas (Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey) and the old «industrial
districts» in Italy and Spain, compose an economy which it is impossible
to describe just with notions like «informal economies». Taking account of the
ability of entrepreneurs to make money with products, no doubt that these
economies are capitalistic, but we are dealing with a capitalism without firms,
without financial capital, without states, just organised on the base of local, social
and personal arrangements. It is what we could call a bazaar economy, according
to the Geertz explanation of the Moroccan suk: a bazaar economy is an integrated
economical structure based on managing strategical informations as an interactive
process. Face to face and personal networks are the key of the division of work,
to the quality appreciation and «the best price» making. It is in this way that some
big and «modern» Mediterranean towns take part to the globalisation process: it
would be impossible to appreciate and describe the forms of their local spaces
without considering their intimate connections with much wider spaces.