Intervening on “Problem” Areas and their Inhabitants

This paper examines the different socio-political contexts in which, from 1941 onwards, public authorities in colonial Algiers constructed shantytowns and their inhabitants as a problem of public health, urbanism, containment, rehousing, migration control and security and then produced statistical information in an attempt to address these issues. It analyses the shifting respective weight attached to such logics, highlighting the increasing role of the military during the war of independence (1954-1962). It underlines the wide range of actors involved in collecting such information, the different types of data produced, their highly variable quality and their diverse uses.