Follows ordinary people as they move through the Algerian city of Oran, navigating the politically charged context of postcolonialism.

In this book, anthropologist Stephanie Love examines ordinary Algerians’ hope for a better future through what she calls “everyday urban poetics,” focusing on the country’s second-largest city of Oran. Examining linguistic forms including placenames, jokes, metaphors, anecdotes, and code-switches along with urban forms including monuments, buildings, and street layouts, Love shows how popular imaginaries of resistance are inscribed in Oran’s language and cityscapes.

Love argues that these everyday urban poetics constitute a street-based language that has helped Algerians find ways around oppressive censorship, reckon with painful pasts, and develop what she views as a politically fertile creative insurgency. This is particularly true in the wake of the 2019 uprising known as Hirak (“the movement”) that found Algerians challenging the legitimacy of the postcolonial regime through large-scale demonstrations and protests. Analyzing phenomena as diverse as efforts to preserve buildings and monuments, the informal renaming of streets and landmarks, and the development of women-led associations encouraging education and open discourse, Love shows how new forms of political life can be developed and sharpened in everyday speech.