Parisians write to the Administration: Interplay between social and spatial boundaries (1920-1945)

This article combines two of Isabelle Backouche’s current research topics. One is the annexation of the non aedificandi zone, a strip of land 250 meters wide where construction was banned in 1841 because it ran along the fortifications; it was largely urbanized upon its incorporation into the city of Paris in 1919. The other is the massive transfer of the apartments of Jewish families in Paris during the Occupation, overseen by the prefecture of the Seine. In both cases, some interested Parisians – evicted residents of the Zone and families trying to take over apartments formerly inhabited by Jews – wrote to the relevant administrations to plead their case. Analysis explores the spatial and social boundaries mobilized in the arguments of these ordinary writings, which provide an opportunity to understand how various actors work on social norms and allow us to reconstruct their participation in spatial dynamics at several scales that affected the capital city in the twentieth century.