Northern France

From the Field

Photographing Prison

Andrea Eichenberger & Carole Gayet-Viaud & Valérie Icard & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 October 2020
The photographs presented here were taken by Andrea Eichenberger at the former men’s and women’s prison in Beauvais,...
From the Field

Open-Air Auto Shops: Subsistence Jobs in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Collectif Rosa Bonheur & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 October 2019
The informal activities of street mechanics observed by Collectif Rosa Bonheur in northern France attest to a much...
Essays

The Treatment of “North Africans” in 1960s Urban Renewal in France

Janoé Vulbeau & translated by Oliver Waine - 1 February 2019
While France’s 1960s urban renewal has been studied in terms of its effects on the working classes, its racial...
Debates

Deafening Discord: Reclaiming Residents’ Anger in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Chabard & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 October 2018
We recently published an article showing how, in Roubaix in northern France, elected officials took steps to...
Debates

Silent Suppression: How Local Politicians Stifle Collective Action in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Julien Talpin & translated by Oliver Waine - 19 October 2018
Taking as its starting point a study of a neighborhood roundtable in the northern French city of Roubaix, this...
From the Field

Dunkirk as a New “Laboratory” for Free Transit

Henri Briche & Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 June 2018
From September 2018, the public transport network in Dunkirk, France, will be free of charge for all users. Henri...
From the Field

Post-industrial cities: towards a new approach

Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2013
While anglophone urban studies have sought to critique the way capitalism has developed, the French social sciences...

Series

Urban Wastes, Present and Future
New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic
Cities in the Age of Financialization
Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research
New York Tech Dossier: The Dark Side of New York’s Tech Economy
Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements
Land Rights in the Urban Global South
Climate Change and Social Change
Shrinking Cities

Featured

Debates

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 June 2020
The residents of France’s working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through...
Essays

Sentinel Territories: A New Concept for Looking at Environmental Change

David Blanchon & Frédéric Keck & François-Michel Le Tourneau & Stéphane Tonnelat & Adriana Zuniga-Teran - 8 May 2020
In this essay, the authors develop the concept of “sentinel territories,” or environments where humans can perceive...
From the Field

Who Cleans Paris? Garbage Collectors in Their Own Words

Coline Ferrant & Marie Mourad & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 June 2019
Who are Paris’s garbage collectors? Coline Ferrant and Marie Mourad highlight the diverse working conditions covered...
From the Field

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk - 4 June 2019
The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of...
Interviews

Teaching Art and the History of Tattoos at Rikers Island: An Interview with Tamara...

Lisa Jean Moore - 22 January 2019
An interview with Tamara Santibanez, who teaches art and the cultural and social history of tattoos to youth...
From the Field

Snowbirds’ Gift Economy in the Arizona Desert

David Frati - 7 November 2017
Each year, 200,000 retired people spend the winter in and around the small town of Quartzsite, Arizona, in the...

Other resources online

Cycles of Violence: Analysing Media Discourse in the Newspaper...

Mobile Lives Forum
How are cyclist and pedestrian deaths depicted in newspaper reports, and how do these reports help shape...

Lahti: The First Carbon-Rationing Experiment Applied to Local...

Mobile Lives Forum
The city of Lahti in Finland was the first to experiment with a carbon-trading scheme among its inhabitants to...

Is Rationing Carbon for Travel a Fair, Efficient, and Realistic...

Mobile Lives Forum
In the wake of the pandemic, a carbon tax at Europe’s borders is now on the agenda, but a domestic version for...

Reducing Carbon-Emitting Travel: A Factor of Social Cohesion and...

Mobile Lives Forum
As part of France’s Mission on the Future of the Economic Model of Public Transportation, commissioned by the French...

Strasbourg, An Example of a Cycling City

Mobile Lives Forum
Strasbourg is the leading city for cycling in France and a constant source of inspiration for all French cities...

The Trinity of Walking, Cycling and Public Transportation Must Be...

Mobile Lives Forum
While emissions from the transportation sector remain at a very high level, all hopes are currently pinned on the...
Centre national de recherche scientifique
Journal supported by the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (Institute of Human and Social Sciences) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

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