Metropolitics

Giving Voice to Stammerers

Abigail Bourguignon & translated by Oliver Waine — 2024-03-19T06:00:00Z

By meeting in self-help groups, far from the usual stigmas, people with stammers are able to talk together. This kind of non-mixity fosters a distancing from the norms of good speech, but it does not eradicate language inequalities between people who stammer.
From the beginning of the 20th century, patient movements have challenged the social control exercised by the medical establishment (Barbot 2002; Pinell and Broqua 2002). Self-help and talk groups, developed in the United States in the

- Essays / handicap, stigmate, disabilities, language, non-mixity, stigma, stigmatization, health

From Scientific Uncertainty to Strategic Ignorance

Gwenola Le Naour & Valentin Thomas & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-11-24T06:00:00Z

In the absence of data, uncertainties about the health risks of industrial pollution abound, and are used by private firms to assert that their activities are not harmful. In this article, Gwenola Le Naour and Valentin Thomas analyze how this “scientific ignorance” is maintained in the “chemical valley” to the south of Lyon in France.
On May 10, 2022, a public meeting was held in Lyon to present the results of an investigation by France Télévisions journalists into perfluorinated pollution

- From the Field / Lyon, pollution, Rhône-Alpes, risk, France, health, industry

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

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-24T05:00:00Z

Although public health measures and local solidarity have helped mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, the département of Seine-Saint-Denis, whose health infrastructure has been profoundly weakened by reforms in recent decades, was more severely affected than other parts of France.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and increased the accumulation of social inequalities in Seine-Saint-Denis: it aggravates the already degraded health status of the urbanized and racialized working

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris region, France, Île-de-France

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

Audrey Mariette & Laure Pitti & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-09-17T05:00:00Z

The Seine-Saint-Denis département, to the northeast of Paris, was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. In the first of two articles, Audrey Mariette and Laure Pitti present their analysis of the epidemic within the département, highlighting its impact in terms of regional inequalities in health.
From the very beginning of the first lockdown, on March 17, 2020, a number of French media outlets reported on the social inequalities that were emerging in the face of the current

- From the Field / Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, health, inequalities, socio-spatial inequalities, Seine-Saint-Denis, Île-de-France, Paris region, France

15 Years of Researching Cities and Pandemics

S. Harris Ali & Creighton Connolly & Roger Keil — 2021-02-09T06:00:00Z

Beginning in 2006 with pioneering work on responses to the SARS crisis in global cities (and in particular Toronto, Hong Kong and Singapore) and expanding their work recently in the context of Covid‑19 and its link to suburbanization, S. Harris Ali, Roger Keil and Creighton Connolly have been working on metropolises and pandemics for the past 15 years. Their analyses help us to understand the current Covid‑19 crisis in its urban dimensions.
Interview by Sophie Didier.
Globalization, viruses

- Interviews / Singapore, Covid-19, coronavirus, Hong Kong, Toronto, health

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-06-05T05:00:00Z

The residents of France's working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their supposed “incivility,” have been the target of speeches that have sought to reactivate the fantasy of the urban ghetto. In reality, however, multiple sources of inequality—housing, health, transportation—have in fact made lockdown especially difficult in housing projects and exposed their residents to a greater risk of infection.
The epidemic that is sweeping the planet is an

- Debates / inequalities, Covid-19, coronavirus, lockdown, housing, social housing, housing estates, housing projects, banlieue, suburbs, working classes, working-class neighborhoods, overoccupancy, health, transport, public transportation, mass transit, France, pandemic

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

Carlo Stasolla & Tommaso Vitale — 2020-04-28T05:00:00Z

Activist research in formal settlements of emergency housing in Rome during the Covid‑19 lockdown reveals how such settlements struggle with public health concerns and access to food, among other deprivations, and underscores the need for emergency interventions.
On March 9, 2020, “in order to counteract and contain the spread of the Covid‑19 virus,” Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree implementing a complete lockdown aimed at “avoiding any movement of individuals.” The

- From the Field / Roma, Rome, Italy, camps, Covid-19, lockdown, health, food, solidarity, coronavirus

Aubervilliers: Portrait of a Working-Class Suburb

Anaïs Albert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-02-21T06:00:00Z

The republication of an early-20th‑century realist novel set in the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers brings the industrial towns of the pre-war era back to life—their smells, their health risks, but above all the lives of their inhabitants—offering today's readers a veritable ethnographic immersion into this working-class town.
Although today largely forgotten, except by historians of the working classes, Léon Bonneff was a major figure of social investigation in the early 20th century.

- Reviews / Aubervilliers, Paris, Greater Paris, France, Île-de-France, Paris region, industry, suburbs, banlieue, pollution, health, work, working classes, history, urban history, literature, environment, workers, blue-collar workers, manual workers

Incarceration, Human Rights, and Health: Life and Death in Rikers Island

Tawana Anthony — 2019-06-25T05:00:00Z

Tawana Anthony applauds Homer Venters' Life and Death in Rikers Island for exposing the institutional indifference to human rights that pervades Rikers Island, but notes that the book is silent on the structural changes in both the corrections and healthcare systems that would lead to significant and durable improvements.
Homer Venters, a member of Physicians for Human Rights and former head of Correctional Health Services in New York City, uses a human-rights perspective to examine

- Reviews / prison, incarceration, human rights, health, health risks, New York, United States, Rikers Island

Proclaiming “Veggie Pride” in Paris and New York

Elizabeth Cherry — 2016-11-22T06:00:00Z

How do animal-rights activists promote vegetarianism? Many activists use environmental and health arguments, but this is not always an acceptable tactic to other activists. In this article, Elizabeth Cherry explores how activists in Paris and New York take two different approaches to promoting vegetarianism while using the same tactic, a “Veggie Pride” parade.
Animal-rights activists oppose animal exploitation in all its forms. Since the mid‑1980s, animal-rights activism has centered on

- From the Field / health, environment, social movement, Paris, food, New York, meat, activism, animal rights, vegetarian, vegan, animal welfare, tactics, Veggie Pride