Abstract
The final chapter of this book takes a comparative perspective on the case studies and analyses provided in the preceding papers that focused on the East African coast, North-West Africa (Morocco) and the Iberian Peninsula from the precolonial to the colonial periods. The contribution of comparative approaches to historical archaeologies is reviewed, while highlighting their relevance for the themes of urbanism and colonialism. The focus remains on the roles of the most important public features identified throughout the book, such as mosques, markets and streets, while offering comparative analyses of their social-spatial character and potential. The semi-public function as a component of specific spaces in otherwise residential or private buildings is analysed in detail. Reflecting on the importance of the courtyard house in Islamic towns, the social role of the courtyard is analysed with the use of space syntax on two contemporary sites at Gede, Kenya and Siyasa, Spain. The theoretical models of colonial urbanism and Islamic urbanism are discussed in reflection on their established characteristics and on the use of these concepts in urban studies and historical archaeology.
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Baumanova, M. (2022). Comparative Perspectives on (Pre)Colonial Urban Transformations. In: Urban Public Space in Colonial Transformations. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14697-8_7
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