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by Vincent Battesti

Change of uses of public spaces in Cairo: Downtown area and parks
Lecture given at the Weekly Seminar of the CEDEJ, Cairo, June 21st, 2005.

 In two words: lecture on an account of the evolution by its actors of the uses in public spaces of the downtown area of Cairo (wast el-balad) and in the parks (public gardens), then more theoretical hypotheses of reflexion supported by ethnographic descriptions of these uses. Tentative conclusions on the methods of creations/evolutions of standards of behavior in situation of anonymity (and not of interconnaissance) in these public spaces, co-produced by the Egyptian authorities as much as by its users.

Wast el-Balad, shara Talaat Harb