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Transversal Seminars

Cities are back in town

The question of the city is back once again at the heart of the social sciences. The global dynamics of urbanisation and the growing role of cities in the production of wealth, but also of riots and poverty, mobility, the accumulation of technologies, the creation of inequalities and governance, are all elements that structure and interpenetrate the field. Contemporary questions on the transformation of cities and metropolitan centres recall the passionate debates of the early 20th century, in the era of the consolidation of nation states and industrial capitalism, and of the creation of new metropolitan ways of life, with their disruptive imaginary load.

Cities are simultaneously physical places where material constructions, technologies, public policies, and populations accumulate, and spaces of exchange, of circulation, of mobility, of transnationalisation. How should we approach the development of cities that are anchored in territories, but are at the same time at the heart of increasingly global dynamics of mobility?

The purpose of this programme is to initiate new research perspectives, to conduct systematic in-depth work on the Paris region, and to instigate a programme of comparison between cities in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa, around three major themes:

  • The spatialisation of inequalities, segregation (economic, social, educational and ethnic), and their effects on the relations between social groups, welfare states and urban inequalities;
  • Government, governance and democracy, urban policies, conflicts and activism;
  • Socio-economics of cities, institutions and economic development.

These three themes will be interwoven with more innovative questions, which will revitalise approaches to the urban sphere:

  • Social control, security, surveillance technology, public spaces;
  • Mobility, movement, and immigration;
  • Risks and technologies.

The series of Working Papers in the Cities and Territories programme allows ongoing research to be published in the form of provisional papers, and thereby contributes to the debates on urban issues. This regularly updated section is a vehicle for the dissemination of the work of the Cities and Territories group, and of the sociologists, political scientists and economists invited to the seminars run by the Cities programme.

We welcome proposals for contributions that give an up-to-date account of the literature or combine original empirical study of a concrete case with theoretical and/or methodological analysis.

Scientific directors

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Seminars

Previous years 

Key Themes

Cities, borders, (im)mobilities

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Social Sciences in question: The leading epistemological and methodological controversies of our time

In partnership with the CERI

This seminar is focused on methods in social sciences. They found the validity of our research and of our findings. Yet they are rarely explicitely stated, few are the occasions to discuss them, and France in this respect seems often disconnected from the often heated debates they spark in universities abroad. The objective of this joint CEE - CERI seminar is to provide junior and senior researchers with a place to meet and exchange on these issues. A place where one can compare our research questions, our fieldwork, the concrete problems we encounter and the way to address them- in a nutschell, our methodological recipes- in the light of today’s major epistemological controversies.

Team

Seminars (2022-2023)

Previous years

MiDi, Migration and Diversity

MiDi, Migration and Diversity, is a collective interdisciplinary initiative which brings together researchers from the different research centers of Sciences Po, around the issues of international migration and diversity.

The research collective brings together scientists from CERI, the CEE, the OSC, the Law School, the Department of History, the Department of Economics, CEVIPOF and LIEPP. The research that is done at Sciences Po on the subject covers very broad themes: migratory flows, right of asylum, borders, integration of immigrants, discrimination and inequality in the European and global contexts.

The MiDi research collective aims to unite researchers and boost current research. It makes scientific production more visible both inside, for the Sciences Po community, in particular students, and outside, for our institutional partners and to encourage cooperation in international projects. Thanks to this collective, Sciences Po is today a member of IMISCOE, a European federation of scientific institutions working on migration.

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Events

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Popar

This seminar focuses on the study of parliament, legislators, the representative phenomenon and politicians. It meets once every two months and is organized around two parts. The first is for presentations of work in progress, often thesis. The second organizes a collective discussion around a recent book on the model of a reading seminar.

Team

Seminars

Previous years 

Key Themes

Strains of the democratic representation

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