Constructing Dakar: Assimilation, Association and Power in French African Urban Development
Abstract
Founded in Senegal in 1857, the French West African capital of Dakar visually projected France's assimilationist vision of colonial power. This paper addresses the current scholarship on French African urban development by offering an introductory analysis of the interaction and convergence of assimilation and association in Dakar before 1914. It questions the impact this interplay had on the French understanding of assimilation as a category of colonial power. The impact of both cultural theories on African city-dwellers is also examined to highlight how this population responded to and transformed French colonial planning ideology.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
