Through the Names of Streets and Districts in the City of Douala Everyday 
Social representations of urban space are subject to interpretation and reappropriation by people beyond the official names of public authorities. This paper’s objective is to relate the way in which public spaces are occupied, challenged and transformed by the « citizens » with the purpose of subverting the city. The names of streets and districts provide access to a set of topics which exceeds the materiality of the city. To perceive in a given context the system of value, representations, discourses and symbols gives groups of population a sense of identity and strength. These recompositions of the urban array taking place in daily life subvert the managerial and political logics. The city is not only a mass of population or a densely built area ; it refers to the specific links that urbans construct with each other and with the space in which they live. Popular semiotics offers a look at the social practices and at the effects of recomposition in the city of Douala which helps to determine its ambivalent anchoring in modernity as well as the way to read political action.