Summary
The reflection that we tried to carry out about the
representations of urban space and household refuse enable us to firstly notice
the complexity of the chosen topic. And, from the beginning, the challenge
consisted in identifying the various representations of public and private
urban spaces as we distinguished them as well as the representations of
household refuse. Secondly, it is the question of establishing the possible
causal relationships between these representations and the household refuse
management.
In short, it was the question for us to understand and explain
a social fact that occurs in a developing urban society. And one thing appeared
obvious to us: urban spaces are approached through mental images. As privileged
supports of human activities, they are perceived in diverse ways and valued by
those who dwell in them or exploit them. According to Paul Claval, «
à l'étendue qu'ils occupent, qu'ils parcourent et qu'ils
utilisent se superpose, dans leur esprit, celle qu'ils connaissent, qu'ils
aiment et qui est pour eux signe de sécurité, motif de
fierté ou source d'attachement. »2 (Paul Claval
1978: 16).
To the functionalities of spaces which pertain to the
representations of urban spaces are added an organization and a management of
urban spaces which do not practically provide any reference mark to the
city-dwellers of N'djamena who are questing for a meaning to this new
developing environment. Public urban spaces, be them defined as " State
spaces ", "everybody's spaces " or "empty
spaces ", have in common the fact of not being perceived through urban
functions of entertainment, aesthetics, urban ventilation, circulation, trade,
sport... collectively.
That induces a social disorganization which
affects the improvement of the concerned spaces because there is inadequacy
between these urban functions and the uses that the representations of these
spaces suggest to their daily consumers (and producers). But the latter, in
addition to their regulation, suggest compulsory public health standards which
are very often not necessary especially when the entire urban community benefit
from a regular improvement.
In the absence of this model that goes urban development
therefore, the representations which are formed essentially authorize the
occupation of urban spaces without a veritable
2 «In their mind, the area that they
occupy, cover and use and the one that they like and which is for them a sign
of security, and a source of pride or attachment have become
indistinguishable» (own translation).
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responsibility of the urban populations3 for their
cleaning. Of course, urban spaces will never be solely used for the functions
for which they are defined by the urban developer. Because functions that the
people who exploit them in their daily quest for the «benefices
symboliques»4 - to borrow the expression used by Michel de
Certeau (1994: 17) - will allot to them either sporadically or permanently will
necessarily be superimposed on those defined functions.
Moreover, urban spaces are managed taking into account the
natural constraints one encounters there. We could see that due to their
geomorphology and their geology, one throw there refuse which are in actual
fact expected elsewhere in places which are provided for this purpose. From
which the ambivalence of the concept of "Not In My Back Yard" (NIMBY) that we
have developed.
In any case, the management of the household refuse in
N'djamena is carried out on the margin of the management of urban spaces.
However, managing household refuse necessarily implies that spaces which are
their supports are also managed because, finally, the problem which is of
concern (or which should be of concern) to the managers of the household refuse
or even to the populations, is to healthily manage the refuse in the same
places where they are produced.
It is furthermore obvious that in an urban environment, every
household or every individual do not transport their waste individually nor
immediately after their production, to the final dumps generally located
outside the city. Urban wastes leave the households and other waste producers
to the final dumps passing through urban spaces where sometimes they remain for
a long time. It is therefore necessary to manage both urban spaces and
household refuse.
3 Who are anyway a kind of hybrid town-dwellers; maybe
shall we say neo-town-dwellers questing for urbanity?
4 «Token benefits» (Own
translation).
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