Counting shacks and their inhabitants: the production and use of statistics on the informal city in the 20th century
29-30 janvier
Centre Pouchet, 61 rue Pouchet 75017 Paris, salle de conférences
After a first workshop (3-4 July 2017) examining how legal and regulatory categories of the informal city were constructed between 1900 and 1950, the research team ‘Informal city in the 20th century’ now turns its attention to the documentation produced to describe these areas thus categorised : with the informal city diagnosed as a problem, documentary material was therefore needed in order to define and hence deal with it. This involved counting, mapping, and undertaking social and photographic surveys. Estimating the extent of the problem formed one of the public authorities’ main preoccupations : this two-day workshop will therefore explore how public authorities sought to both measure and describe it.