banlieue

Interviews

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Magda Maaoui & Pierre Mansat - 26 June 2020

Magda Maaoui interviews Pierre Mansat, former deputy mayor of Paris and a founding father of “le Grand Paris” (the...

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...

From the Field

How the Youth of the Banlieues See the Gilets Jaunes

Ahmed & Baptiste & Hachimia & Jeremy & Karima & Lisa-Marie & Louiza & Thibaut & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 April 2020

Do the “Yellow Vests” and the youth of France’s banlieues share a common vision of the inequalities and discrimination...

Reviews

Aubervilliers: Portrait of a Working-Class Suburb

Anaïs Albert & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 February 2020

The republication of an early-20th‑century realist novel set in the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers brings...

Debates

Can Cannabis Be Legalized in France Without Inflaming the Banlieues?

Christian Ben Lakhdar & Aymeric Reyre & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 July 2019

France is a place of paradoxes: cannabis is widely consumed, and yet legalization does not seem to be on the cards,...

Debates

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Carine Guérandel & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 March 2019

In a work rich in ethnographic material, Akim Oualhaci questions how socialization through sports contributes to...

From the Field

Photography, Ethnography and Exhibitions in the Projects

Camilo León-Quijano & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 January 2019

Pictures taken by photographer and sociologist Camilo León-Quijano with the initial aim of understanding the...

From the Field

The Americanization of French social movements? Community organizing and its discontents in the banlieues

Julien Talpin - 29 June 2017

In this second of two articles, sociologist Julien Talpin discusses the importation to France of American...

From the Field

What’s the matter with the banlieues? Exploring the importation of the American community organizing tradition by French social movements

Julien Talpin - 22 June 2017

With the eclipse of the once-powerful Communist and Socialist Parties in France, and these parties’ traditional...

From the Field

Rendering a Redeveloped France

Alex Schafran & Giorgia Aiello & Theresa Enright & Yohann Le Moigne - 7 June 2017

As urban redevelopment projects remake the Greater Paris region, it is impossible to separate an avalanche of new...

From the Field

Citizen Outsider: Racism, Marginalization, and Immigration in France

Jean Beaman - 31 May 2017

As refugee crises have emerged and immigration has increased in many regions of the world, several Western...

From the Field

Visual Sociology: Re-Imaging Marseille’s Housing Projects

William Kornblum - 10 July 2015

New York sociologist William Kornblum has brought back pictures of the Marseille Northern Housing Projects—the...

Debates

Using heritage status to combat segregation: the case of French housing estates

Marc Bertier & Hervé Marchal & Jean-Marc Stébé & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 October 2014

Challenging the idea that demolishing housing estates is all it takes to eradicate the social problems with which...

Reviews

How journalists see “the suburbs”: lifting the veil on a cliché

Julie Sedel & translated by Oliver Waine - 10 September 2014

“La banlieue”: in France, few terms convey such a clear and constant image: high-rise social housing, young men “of...

Essays

Another Vision of the Suburbs

Jean-Christophe Bardot & Laurent Devisme & translated by Oliver Waine - 7 May 2014

Images of the urban fringes of French cities often tend either to condemn their ugliness or to revel in a strange...

Essays

Racism: a blind spot in French urban sociology?

Élise Palomares & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 October 2013

Why has the analysis of interethnic relations been so long ignored by French urban sociology? For Élise Palomares,...

Debates

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

Lara Belkind - 12 June 2013

In the fragmented context of Paris’s metropolitan and regional politics, the Grand Pari(s) design consultation and...

Essays

The media construction of the suburbs in France: looking back on the 2007 presidential campaign

Jean Rivière & Sylvie Tissot & translated by Oliver Waine - 23 May 2012

In the run-up to the recent French presidential elections, the question of la banlieue – the (generally poor)...

Debates

Homosexual City, Homophobic Banlieue?

Éric Fassin & translated by Christina Mitrakos - 9 March 2011

Is homophobia prevalent in social housing projects? Is sexual orientation the new divide between civilizations? Éric...

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

How the Youth of the Banlieues See the Gilets Jaunes

Aubervilliers: Portrait of a Working-Class Suburb

Can Cannabis Be Legalized in France Without Inflaming the Banlieues?

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Photography, Ethnography and Exhibitions in the Projects

The Americanization of French social movements? Community organizing and its discontents in the banlieues

What’s the matter with the banlieues? Exploring the importation of the American community organizing tradition by French social movements

Rendering a Redeveloped France

Citizen Outsider: Racism, Marginalization, and Immigration in France

Visual Sociology: Re-Imaging Marseille’s Housing Projects

Using heritage status to combat segregation: the case of French housing estates

How journalists see “the suburbs”: lifting the veil on a cliché

Another Vision of the Suburbs

Racism: a blind spot in French urban sociology?

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

The media construction of the suburbs in France: looking back on the 2007 presidential campaign

Homosexual City, Homophobic Banlieue?

Series

Featured

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Sentinel Territories: A New Concept for Looking at Environmental Change

Who Cleans Paris? Garbage Collectors in Their Own Words

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

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

Snowbirds’ Gift Economy in the Arizona Desert

Other resources online

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

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

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

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

Strasbourg, An Example of a Cycling City

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

Partners