Clément Barbier

Clément Barbier is an assistant professor at the Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France (UPHF) in Valenciennes, northern France, where he is a member of the Larsh research unit (Laboratoire de Recherche Sociétés et Humanités – Societies and Humanities Research Laboratory), and is an associate researcher at Ceraps (Centre d’études et de recherches administratives, politiques et sociales – Centre for Administrative, Political and Social Studies and Research) in Lille.

His work focuses on the localized government of transformations of capitalism, through comparative sociology of major urban renewal projects, comparative analysis of the socioprofessional and non-work trajectories of logistics workers, and studies of real-estate (re)conversions undertaken by the wealthy industrial classes. In this way, his work straddles several fields of research: the sociology of public action, of the working classes, of the upper-middle classes, and of real-estate markets, as well as the epistemology of comparison in the social sciences.

His recent publications include En quête d’attractivité. Le renouvellement urbain par grand projet dans les métropoles de Lille et Hambourg (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2025); and, with Fabien Desage, “En bons partenaires. Permanences et recompositions des liens entre promoteurs immobiliers et acteurs publics. Agglomération lilloise (1945-2000)” (Revue française de science politique, vol. 74, no. 2, 2024).

His latest research concerns workforce retraining policies and precarious employment models in (former) mining areas.