Le Respect de/dans la Ville: Confrontations Praxiques et Vulnérabilité des Identités Urbaines

The city is a grid of “respects” constantly subjected to the dynamics of inclusions/exclusions (subjects) and introductions/deconstructions (objects). These dynamics are regulated by institutions whose jurisdiction should be tacitly respected as the normative horizon of the local syntactic constructions of intersubjective respects. We propose to assume the notion of respect as the public negotiation of the legitimacy of identity existence concerning both people and things. The city presents itself as the place where each cultural entity that inhabits it claims its own ethos, namely a right to self-presentation, while recognizing the need to respect the common ground of a settled dialogue or confrontation. Respect is at once attributive (being respectable), transitive (respecting the other), reflexive (respecting oneself), reciprocal (respecting each other), up to the middle voice (passive and active diathesis at the same time) of the beneficial factitivity of the formula “to command respect”. The grammar of respect is a platform for reducing inter-identity tensions through procedures as well as a solicitation to individual responsibility when the institutional framework is not sufficient or when it falters in the face of uncontrollable phenomena. Our objective is to observe, through a case study, the grammar of respect solicited on two sides: aesthetic and synchronic: according to the polemology of decorative styles in the city (institutional decoration and dissident inscriptions); ethical and prospective: according to the anticipation of regulatory procedures and individual/collective responsibilities in the face of exceptional events or risky practices.