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This book studies those who, in various domains of life, are resisting the increasingly harsh day-to-day pressures of “late capitalism,” centering mainly on French examples. Far from the global euphoria of the sixties and seventies, everyday people are trying to loosen the grip of injustice in very concrete ways: people experiencing homelessness try to occupy and live in empty buildings; collectives of small farmers and consumers avoid long (and costly) commercial supply chains to defend their common interests; students and teachers organize to prevent the expulsion of undocumented migrants; and activists in the free software movement fight for the “common ownership” of software and of the Internet. Through civil disobedience in the midst of daily life, people are trying to resist, work against, and change laws that protect the interests of firms and corporations considered socially or ecologically unfair.
Sociologists have long noted that dynamism is an essential part of the urban way of life. However, walking as a significant social activity and crucial research method (in spite of its ubiquity as part of urban life) has often been overlooked. This volume considers walking in the city from a variety of perspectives, in a variety of places and with a variety of methods, to engage with the question of how walking can contribute to the sociological imagination and reveal sociological knowledge. Bringing together new research on sites across Europe, Walking in the European City addresses the nature of everyday mobility in contemporary urban settings, shedding light not only on the ways in which ...
In the last two decades, research on spatial paradigms and practices has gained momentum across disciplines and vastly different periods, including the field of medieval studies. Responding to this ’spatial turn’ in the humanities, the essays collected here generate new ideas about how medieval space was defined, constructed, and practiced in Europe, particularly in France. Essays are grouped thematically and in three parts, from specific sites, through the broader shaping of territory by means of socially constructed networks, to the larger geographical realm. The resulting collection builds on existing scholarship but brings new insight, situating medieval constructions of space in relation to contemporary conceptions of the subject.
This book aims to provide an original perspective on the changes that Greece has undergone in recent decades, by examining questions related to border disputes and migration, minority issues and national inclusion, and their effect in reinforcing discourses of glorification of the past and tradition on the fringes of Greek territory.
The reduction of inequalities within and between countries stands as a policy goal, and deserves to take centre stage in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed during the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.The 2013 edition of A Planet for Life represents a unique international initiative grounded on conceptual and strategic thinking, and – most importantly – empirical experiments, conducted on five continents and touching on multiple realities. This unprecedented collection of works proposes a solid empirical approach, rather than an ideological one, to inform future debate.The case studies collected in this volume demonstrate the complexity of the new systems required to ac...
Focused on struggles and debates in France, Martinique and Canada, Urban Revolutions shows how research on the (neo-)colonial dimensions of capitalist urbanization deepens the relationship between Marxist and anti-colonial traditions, including those represented by Henri Lefebvre and Frantz Fanon.
Building on three decades of comparative research on marginality, ethnicity, and penality in the postindustrial metropolis, Loïc Wacquant offers a novel interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu as urban theorist. He invites us to explore the city through what he calls the trialectic of symbolic space (the mental categories through which we perceive and organize the world), social space (the distribution of capital in its different forms), and physical space (the built environment). On this reading, Bourdieu's topological sociology gives us the tools both to energize and also to challenge the canon of urban studies and to redraw their theoretical landscape. Compact and incisive, Bourdieu in the City will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, geography, urban studies, urban planning, architecture, and social theory.
Dans bien des capitales, des places majestueuses, chargées d’histoire et de symboles, sont investies par des manifestants : les étudiants de la place Tian-An-Men à Pékin, les Indignés sur la Puerta del Sol à Madrid, les mères de disparus sur la Place de Mai à Buenos Aires, les contestataires sur le Zócalo de Mexico… Cette centralité de l’espace dans la construction de la contestation a été notée par de nombreux observateurs au cours des révoltes arabes et du mouvement Occupy. Or, en dépit de cette apparente évidence du lieu, la dimension spatiale n’a que rarement fait l’objet d’une attention en tant que telle dans la sociologie des mobilisations. Cet ouvrage s’attaque à cet angle mort. Il propose au lecteur de comprendre l’importance des lieux physiques et vécus et leurs effets sur l’action collective en suivant des mobilisations très variées – locales ou nationales-, d’hier ou d’aujourd’hui, de la péninsule arabique à la Bretagne, de New York à la Seine-Saint-Denis, de l’Amazonie péruvienne à Madrid.
The Poplars housing development in suburban Paris is home to what one resident called the “Little-Middles” – a social group on the tenuous border between the working- and middle- classes. In the 1960s The Poplars was a site of upward social mobility, which fostered an egalitarian sense of community among residents. This feeling of collective flourishing was challenged when some residents moved away, selling their homes to a new generation of upwardly mobile neighbors from predominantly immigrant backgrounds. This volume explores the strained reception of these migrants, arguing that this is less a product of racism and xenophobia than of anxiety about social class and the loss of a sense of community that reigned before.
L'intensification et l’amplitude des migrations internationales à l’aube du XXIe siècle placent l’Europe devant de nouveaux défis. Au cœur d’un système migratoire d’ampleur inédite, il lui faut d’urgence élaborer une stratégie visionnaire pour assurer ou refonder sa cohérence. Condition préalable : la compréhension de son passé migratoire récent..