elections

From the Field

Electoral Organizing During a Pandemic: Lessons from Wisconsin

Aaron Shapiro - 12 January 2021
The global Covid‑19 pandemic has radically altered social and political practices. Aaron Shapiro reflects on the...
From the Field

Post-Election Dispatches from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

Jamie Longazel - 22 December 2020
Jamie Longazel reflects on organizing for the 2020 general election in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A longtime...
Interviews

Political Organizing Beyond the Election: An Interview with Rosa Saavedra in North Carolina

Rosa Saavedra & Edwin Mayorga - 2 November 2020
Edwin Mayorga interviews organizer Rosa Saavedra from North Carolina. They discuss the political landscape and...
Interviews

Electoral Organizing in North Carolina: An Interview with Tomás Garduño

Tomás Garduño & Kate Selden - 27 October 2020
Kate Selden interviews Tomás Garduño, a social-justice organizer, about his work in Lenoir County, North Carolina,...
From the Field

National and Urban Politics Converge in Moscow: Will Local Activism Prevail?

Anna Zhelnina - 1 October 2019
Recent elections in Moscow and across Russia reflect the convergence of local activism and national anti-Kremlin...
Reviews

Political Conservatism and the Working Classes in France

David Gouard & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 January 2019
In her latest book, Le Vote FN au village (“The National Front Vote in the Village”), sociologist Violaine Girard...
Essays

Far from the Ballot Box: The Political Exclusion of the Working Classes in France

Camille Peugny & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 July 2018
Following the French presidential and parliamentary elections of 2017, the question of equal access to the...
Essays

This is Not How it Ends: Post-Election Immigration Organizing in the United States

Folasade K. Famakinwa - 7 December 2016
In response to a tense post-election moment in the US, the Metropolitics editorial committee has initiated...
Essays

Remaking Black Political Spaces for Black Liberation

Akira Drake Rodriguez - 1 December 2016
What are the political implications of the redistribution of the Black population in the US? Akira Drake Rodriguez...
Debates

On Clinton, Obama, Trump and the Failures of Liberal Urban Policy

James DeFilippis - 15 November 2016
Many progressives are still in shock at the outcome of the recent US presidential election. In this contribution to...
From the Field

The Communists’ Urban Archipelago

Roger Martelli & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 September 2014
While the Socialist Party was the big loser in France’s municipal elections in March, the French Communist Party was...
From the Field

The electoral effects of social divisions in French cities

Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 July 2014
According to many commentators, France’s major cities are bastions of support for the parliamentary left when it...
From the Field

In the shadow of the mayor

Michel Koebel & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 June 2014
After his investigation into the representativeness of local councillors in France, Michel Koebel has now turned...
Debates

Preparing for a protest vote?

Rémi Lefebvre & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 June 2014
Between 2008 and 2014, the French Socialist Party was, more than ever before, a party of “local politicians”. Here,...
Reviews

The misunderstandings of European democracy

Philippe Aldrin & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 May 2014
Though an economic giant, the European Union still appears to be something of a political dwarf. Yet a political...
Debates

The grandeur and decadence of the suburbs

Violaine Girard & Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 September 2013
Periurban areas emerged in the 2000s as “new” spaces indicative of recent changes in French society – the weakening of...
Debates

Do local politicians represent the people? A sociological portrait

Michel Koebel & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 November 2012
France’s 500,000 local councillors are regularly presented as the most popular elected officials and those closest...
Essays

Mapping votes and social inequalities: the case of Paris and its inner suburbs

Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 27 June 2012
Analysing local contexts can prove particularly enlightening when it comes to understanding electoral processes,...
Essays

Explaining the periurban right-wing vote: “social frustrations” of low-income households or the reshaping of the working classes?

Violaine Girard & translated by Oliver Waine - 13 June 2012
There is a growing interest in voting patterns in periurban areas, which tend to lean to the right or even far...
Essays

Maps and opinion polls

Joël Gombin & Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 June 2012
Presidential elections – a crucial moment in the democratic life of France – generate all sorts of analyses that seek...
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)...

Series

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
The Resurgence of Towers in European Cities
Children in the City
The Renewed Relevance of Urban-Planning Models?

Featured

From the Field

Arts Districts Without Artists

Meghan Ashlin Rich - 23 March 2015
Numerous studies have examined gentrification’s harmful effects for low-income residents, but few examine the...
Debates

Interrupting Inequality: Crisis and Opportunity in Low-Income Housing Policy

Susan Saegert - 26 January 2015
Inequality in the United States is deeply rooted in issues of property ownership, wealth, race and class....
Debates

Kanal İstanbul: a “crazy project” serving political ambitions

Yoann Morvan & translated by Oliver Waine - 7 December 2011
The current proliferation of mega-projects in the Istanbul metropolitan area is both undeniable and impressive. The...

Other resources online

When New Lifestyles Disrupt Daily Mobility in England

Mobile Lives Forum
Thanks to new “remote” practices enabled by the development of teleworking and online shopping, we can perform our...

Autonomous Vehicles: What Role Can They Play in the Mobility...

Mobile Lives Forum
At a time when companies and governments are focusing all their energy on innovation, autonomous vehicles seem to...

Call for Papers | Southern Diaries: Mobilities Research in the...

Mobile Lives Forum
“Southern Diaries” is a space on the Mobile Lives Forum website that promotes mobilities research in the Global...

“Manuel de sociologie des mobilités géographiques”, by Leslie...

Mobile Lives Forum
While mobility in all its forms has been the subject of an increasing amount of research over the past 20 years,...

History of the Concept of Mobility

Mobile Lives Forum
Defining mobility is especially important because the term is highly polysemous. When geographers use the term...

Are Homeless People “Vagrants”?

Mobile Lives Forum
The image of the “homeless person” is associated with the older figure of the wandering vagrant. In reality,...
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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