Jean-François Valette is a geographer and a postdoctoral researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – French National Centre for Scientific Research) within the mixed research unit PRODIG (Pôle de Recherche pour l’Organisation et la Diffusion de l’Information Géographique – Research Cluster for the Organization and Dissemination of Geographical Information; UMR CNRS 8586). He has also taught at Paris‑1 Panthéon–Sorbonne University and the University of Limoges, before becoming a research engineer within the LabEx (laboratory of excellence) DynamiTe (Dynamiques Territoriales et Spatiales – Territorial and Spatial Dynamics). His research focuses on intra-urban mobility, rootedness, the social division of space, and the sociopolitical mechanisms involved in regularizing illegal low-income neighbourhoods, primarily in Mexico City. He has also participated in a number of research programmes in partnership with institutions such as the IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement – Research Institute for Development), the GIS CIST (groupement d’intérêt scientifique Collège International des Sciences du Territoire – International College of Territorial Sciences scientific interest group), and FLASCO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales – Latin American Social Sciences Institute).