Los Magistrados de Circuito y los Jueces de Distrito serán nombrados

I first examined the city as a material object. This part of my work, undertaken during my first and second fieldwork, relies on an urban geographic method, using different instruments to approach spatial differentiations within an urban framework. A dividing city is a place marked by group partitioning, and hence spatial ruptures, zoning and territorial markers that have been conceptualised differently by geographers and call for different methods of analysis. I will review these different conceptualisations here, as the methods of analysis which I adopted.

The city can be first approached as a place of discontinuity. Based on this notion, I used visual anthropology techniques, through empirical observation of the urban landscape, backed up with photographic data gathering. In my study, I supported

this work by a close examination of statistical data on a variety of indicators, including demographics, ethnicity, social and economical status, etc., which I collected from census results, national and local institutions, as well as non-profit institutions. Discontinuity is a dynamic notion that can evolve, be reinforced or disappear. I crossed- referenced these results with past photographs and statistical data to get an evolutionary picture within a diachronic study of urban processes.

As I discussed in Chapter 1, the notion of discontinuity does not only refer to a linear, sudden and absolute rupture (as a wall), but may be marked by a gradual differentiation. It may also entail less explicit dynamics, conscious or unconscious variations, which have more to do with the representation or perception of the separation – as in the case of a discontinuity resulting from the urban practices of different populations. Discontinuity may also be scale-dependent. Depending on the level of analysis, the separation may be materialised differently, as by a spot, a line or an area. I tried to examine such level variation or change of scale. I recognise that my expectations were higher than the actual results I got there. I wished to gather enough data to produce a diachronic mapping of the repartition of population in the city. Unfortunately, given the lack of statistical data or, rather, the impossibility of using them in an appropriate manner for my research2_{, I had to drop the idea of mapping the} spatial evolution of the city’s population.

The second component of my research was an analysis of Skopje’s spatial limits. The limit results from an action in space, for instance, of drawing a border or administrative zoning. I analysed both the origins of such actions and their impact in urban space. I therefore distinguished three different fields of analysis: administrative zoning, urban borders and the private sphere.

 Analysis of administrative zoning and bordering: from the end of WWII to the

present day, Skopje’s inner divisions have evolved a lot. From 1976 to 1996, Skopje was organised as a distinct social-political community divided in five municipalities; from 1996 to 2004, the city was defined as a unit of local self- government with seven municipalities; since 2004, it was reorganized as Greater Skopje in ten different municipalities, defined by the Law of Skopje and comprised in the Skopje statistical region. Given that the Ohrid Framework Agreement included special provisions on municipal level regarding 2 _{This is due, for instance, to the manifold changes brought to administrative borders in the last decades} and the impossibility to map these changes and extract clear data.

decentralisation and local government (on issues such as the use of minority languages, education, local police, etc.), I explored the role and potential impact of administrative zoning in interethnic relations and how it might be a stake for various groups competing for representation. I also examined whether these limits have been formalized in urban space. Due to the lack of cartographical data, I restricted this issue to the separation between the municipalities of Centar and Čair. I based this analysis on an examination of archival and official documents and of the urban landscape (street signs, flags, etc.), backed up by photographical data collection.

 Urban borders: I drew from Markus’s (1986) typology of urban barriers to

examine in more depth urban space. My analysis of urban internal barriers and territorial markers is based on close observation of the urban landscape supported by photographic data gathering. I examined in particular the river Vardar as a place of discontinuity and an interface between the old and the new town and between communities in the city centre.

 Private space: I analysed individual and collective zoning at a private level. I examined processes of closure and limit drawing of the public space undertaken by communities or individuals marking isolation of segregation (gated communities, private streets, fences, symbolical markers of ethnic enclaves and ghettos, etc.). As a visual communication system, these elements were analysed by visual methods of data gathering, including photography, archives, newspapers, corporate and private collections.

I accessed archival material thanks to the Museum of the City of Skopje, which published a book on the life in Skopje during the interwar (Kačeva, and al., 2006) and gave me access to old photographs. Some historical documents, such as postcards of Skopje, may also be found online on Macedonian websites. I also collected official documents and reports published by local NGOs, national associations, international organisations or public institutions during my interviews and visits to their locals. I collected other official material online, such as strategic and spatial plans for local development of Skopje municipalities, as well as demographic and statistic data (for example, the census results are accessible on the national statistical office website3. The great majority of these documents were in Macedonian, with some in Albanian or other

Balkan languages. Very few books in English or French have been written on Macedonia, let alone on Skopje.

These methods enabled me to conceptualize the multidimensional and multiscale processes of divisions through an examination of urban zoning and bordering. Lines of separation may be more or less fixed, delimited and significant. As the interest of spatial borders does not only lie in their physicality and ‘objectivity’, it was fundamental to understand what rationale and practical actions led to their edification.