Events

Compulsory registration Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Society ​For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. Land Power shows that who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment.  Modern history has been defined by land reallocation on a massive scale. From the 1500s on, European colonial powers and new nation-states shifted indigenous lands into the hands […]

Compulsory registration Courts mobilization and urban governance in Mexico City Although the relationship between legal mechanisms and urban experience has attracted the attention of American scholars for several decades (Revell, 2003; Valverde, 2009, 2022), much of this research has been produced outside the field of urban studies (Valverde, 2003). Within the framework of research on the functioning of urban regulation in Mexico City, this paper examines how the mobilization of the courts, in relation to such regulation, can shape urban development. This interaction has also attracted the attention of scholars working on Latin American cities. In their analysis of the […]

Sciences Po, Salle de Conseil, 13 Rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris Hybrid Seeing the local in the global and the global in the local This half-day seminar explores different perspectives on how urban and regional studies can bridge the gap between global processes and their local manifestations. Rather than treating “the global” and “the local” as separate scales, we approach them as mutually constitutive. The central question is: under what conditions, and through which mechanisms, are the local and the global co-produced? And which tools can urban studies provide us with to understand this? Two keynote perspectives anchor the discussion. […]

Compulsory registration Suburban Blues: The Clash of Local and National Politics in America’s Suburbs Suburban Blues explores the tensions within suburban communities that are increasingly supporting liberal policies at the national level but still working to sustain exclusionary housing and education policies at the local-level. It asks: What explains why suburbanites continue to fight for the policies that sustain suburban advantage, despite the fact that an increasing number of them are now Democrats? And what could change this suburban status quo, convincing suburban Democrats to support local politics that are more in line with their national politics, thereby reducing spatial inequalities between […]

Inscription obligatoire Les métropoles d’Europe du Sud à l’épreuve des crises du XXIe siècle. 12.03.2025 Comment « faire face » aux crises socio-économique, financière, sanitaire ? Comment « faire avec» un contexte marqué par l’incertitude et la précarité mais aussi par des porosités croissantes entre différents champs de l’urbain ? Ces questions se sont posées récemment avec acuité dans les grandes villes d’Europe du Sud : crise des « subprimes » (2008), crise dite des migrants (2015), crise sanitaire (2020-2021)… Autant de secousses qui, dans un contexte de blocage de la dynamique d’intégration européenne, révèlent des fragilités à l’œuvre et accélèrent les mues  de l’action publique touchant à […]

Compulsory registration Mobilizing Air: Cycling, Environmental Crisis, and Post-Carbon Futures What political topographies does air pollution produce? How do bicyclists in large Asian cities experience, navigate, and mobilize air in their everyday lives? And what do these practices reveal about life amid environmental crises? Drawing on ethnographic research with cyclists and activists in Kolkata, this paper addresses these questions through the analytic of air politics: the multiple registers through which air is sensed, imagined, and mobilized as a political substance. I argue that, despite its apparent intangibility, air politics is profoundly terrestrial, constituted through urban infrastructures, labor regimes, and uneven […]

Compulsory registration The relational side of urban segregation This study examines homophily in neighborhood ties in France, defined as the tendency to establish ties with individuals similar to oneself. Drawing on survey data from 14 neighborhoods in Paris and Lyon, the study focuses on homophily based on gender, age, conjugal status, socio-occupational status, and place of birth. The findings reveal a high degree of homophily in neighborhood ties, shaped by both individual characteristics and neighborhood contexts. In socially mixed contexts, residents show stronger homophily by socio-occupational status and place of birth, suggesting increased selectivity. However, individual choice is only part […]

Compulsory registration Housing Under Platform Capitalism: The Contentious Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in European Cities Fifteen years after the launch of Airbnb, most cities around the world have adopted measures to regulate short-term rental markets. Yet, across different territories—particularly in Europe—a wide variety of governance and regulatory approaches can be observed. Drawing on comparative, multilevel research and employing mixed methods, this book analyses 12 major  touristic European cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, and Vienna) to highlight and explain the emergence of distinct regulatory regimes. In some cities, public policies aim to curb the growth of short-term […]

Compulsory registration Seeking Attractiveness. Large-scale urban renewal projects in the metropolitan areas of Lille and Hamburg. In his latest book, Clément Barbier traces how two ‘problem neighbourhoods’ have progressively been placed at the center of metropolitan urban marketing strategies thereby shedding light on the origins and functionning of policies designed to make cities more attractive. Drawing on a cross national sociological analysis of the Union project in the north-east of the Lille metropolitan area and the International Architecture Exhibition (Internationale Bauausstellung – IBA) in Hamburg, his research takes us behind the scene of local governement and development companies tasked with […]

Compulsory registration Navigating Colour-Blind Societies: Racial Governance and Urban Erasure in Denmark’s Ghetto Policies This talk builds on my recently published book Navigating Colour-Blind Societies, a comparative ethnography of young urban Muslims coming of age in Copenhagen and Montreal in the decade after 9/11. Through personal narratives and urban ethnography, the book highlights how racialisation and spatialisation are interconnected—shaping who belongs where, whose presence is questioned, and how urban life is structured by racial, classed, and gendered hierarchies. Extending these insights, my recent research examines Denmark’s 2018 public housing—or “ghetto”—policies as mechanisms of racial governance aimed at managing and erasing […]