From the Field

From the Field

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (2/2): How the Health System Exacerbates Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 September 2021

Although public health measures and local solidarity have helped mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the...

From the Field

Can the New Economy Survive without Coffee Shops (and Their Wi‑Fi)?

Thomas R. Chung - 21 September 2021

Thomas R. Chung argues that coffee shops play an important role in the creative and tech sectors of the...

From the Field

Covid-19 in Seine-Saint-Denis (1/2): When the Pandemic Entrenches Health Inequalities

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 September 2021

The Seine-Saint-Denis département, to the northeast of Paris, was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic....

From the Field

Inciting Hopes for the Future: Civic Activism in London, Mumbai, and Paris Amid the Covid‑19 Crisis

Öznur Yardımcı & Josué Gimel & Khushboo Srivastava & Jitendra Borday - 8 June 2021

Ethnographic research in London, Mumbai, and Paris during Covid‑19 lockdowns reveals how civic associations filled...

From the Field

Policing Social Housing in Paris: The Role of GPIS

Virginie Malochet & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 May 2021

Social landlords in France recently obtained the right to organize surveillance and security operations themselves...

From the Field

Covid‑19 in China: A Civil Society in the Making

Beiyi Hu - 18 May 2021

Beiyi Hu examines responses to Covid‑19 in China, focusing on civil-society efforts at the social, political, and...

From the Field

Holding Their Own: Gilets Jaunes’ Occupation of Public Space

Antoine Bernard de Raymond & Sylvain Bordiec & translated by Oliver Waine - 30 April 2021

The Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) movement that emerged in France in the fall of 2018 was striking by dint of both...

From the Field

Reflections on Four Years of Housing-Justice Support Work with Mapping Action Collective

Sachi Arakawa & Tim Hitchins - 13 April 2021

Mapping Action Collective, based in Portland, Oregon, leverages mapping and data to support housing-justice...

From the Field

Landlord Tech in Covid‑19 Times

Erin McElroy & Wonyoung So - 30 March 2021

Covid‑19 has expanded trends in surveillance technology deployed by landlords and property managers—resulting in...

From the Field

Algeria’s Hirak: When a Social Movement Puts Citizenship Under the Microscope

Islam Amine Derradji & Amel Gherbi & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 March 2021

From the Field

Understanding Why Homeless People Refuse Emergency Accommodation

Édouard Gardella & translated by Oliver Waine - 9 March 2021

The refusal of emergency accommodation by many homeless people expresses the intensity of their attachment to the...

From the Field

Industrial Wasteland and the Commons

Jules Desgoutte & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 February 2021

Long considered places of experimentation, sharing and freedom, friches culturelles, or temporary cultural spaces,...

From the Field

Montreal’s Alleyways: A Laboratory for Democratic Life

Joëlle Zask & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 February 2021

The participation of a city’s inhabitants in democratic life begins with forms of everyday sociability and commitment...

From the Field

The Asylum Story: Narrative Capital and International Protection

Emily Reid - 2 February 2021

Obtaining international protection relies upon an ability to successfully navigate the host country’s asylum regime....

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

Manifested Stories

Rebecca Blythe Pryor - 5 January 2021

Rebecca Pryor traces the history of the revitalization of the Bronx River, illustrating an alternative narrative to...

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...

From the Field

Cleaning and Care Worker Cooperatives in NYC: Empowerment Through Collectivization of Labor

Nora Komposch - 8 December 2020

Worker cooperatives have been shown to reduce precariousness and economic exclusion of marginalized groups. However,...

From the Field

The Financialization of Rent-Regulated Housing in New York City after Rent Reform

Benjamin F. Teresa - 4 December 2020

In New York City, rent-controlled housing stock has been progressively deregulated over the last three decades, to...

From the Field

The Brazilian Experience of Financialization Through Urban Redevelopment: The Case of “Urban Operations”

Laisa Eleonora Marostica Stroher - 1 December 2020

Laisa Stroher examines the history of large-scale urban regeneration projects in Brazil and shows how a policy...

From the Field

Fragile Financialization: The Struggle for Power and Control in Indian Real-Estate Investment

Llerena Guiu Searle - 27 November 2020

How does the financialization of real estate—a global phenomenon—affect urban development in India? In this...

From the Field

Sale of the Century: Chicago’s Infrastructure Deals and the Privatization State

Philip Ashton & Marc Doussard & Rachel Weber - 24 November 2020

Since 2004, the City of Chicago has been engaged in a new wave of infrastructure privatizations, selling concessions...

From the Field

The Contestations and Contradictions of the New York City Housing Authority’s Plan for Mixed-Income Redevelopment

Valerie E. Stahl - 10 November 2020

The New York City Housing Authority, faced with a capital shortfall of nearly $40 billion, is pursuing a series of...

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

Social Housing in Postcolonial Contexts

Clémence Léobal & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2020

What happens when national social-housing policies developed in mainland France are transposed in overseas...

From the Field

#IStayCamp. Health Conditions, Food Deprivation and Solidarity Problems in the First Days of Lockdown in the Roma Villages of Rome

Carlo Stasolla & Tommaso Vitale - 28 April 2020

Activist research in formal settlements of emergency housing in Rome during the Covid‑19 lockdown reveals how such...

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...

From the Field

When Memory is Confined: Politics of Commemoration on Avenida 26, Bogotá

Violante Torre - 7 April 2020

After more than five decades of conflict, the Colombian capital, Bogotá, is undergoing processes not just of...

From the Field

From Transit to Settlement. A Mexican Border Town’s Transition from a Transit Space to a Waiting Territory

Isabel Gil-Everaert - 3 March 2020

Tanapan, a border town in southern Mexico has long been a point of passage for Central American migrants bound for...

From the Field

Unlikely Inter-Class Cooperation in Urbanizing Rural Colombia

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría - 25 February 2020

Sebastián F. Villamizar Santamaría examines a case of rural gentrification outside of Bogotá, Colombia, and shows how...

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