Wonderful “focal point” on port cities in Eurozine at the moment. Here are some highlights:

Mohamed Saïb Musette: North Africa: Urbanization and migration in Algiers

 NORTH AFRICA From Ottoman rule through the colonial period, Algiers’ function as military and economic power has been interwoven with processes of migration. Saïb Musette surveys this “histoire croisée” and asks where Algeria’s international metropolis is heading in the future. [ more ]

Joëlle Zask: Marseille: A community of strangers

 MARSEILLE Lacking any unified vision of itself, Marseille proves the possibility of a good society based on simple co-presence rather than intimate co-existence. As such, it offers an alternative approach to the diversity of Europe as a whole, argues Joëlle Zask. [ more ]

Franco Bianchini, Jude Bloomfield: Porous cities

HARBOUR CULTURE Walter Benjamin’s description of Naples as a “porous city” absorbent of heterogeneity applies equally to other harbour cities, write Jude Bloomfield and Franco Bianchini. On cultural hybridity, economies of informality and strategies of creativity in four European ports. [ more ]