Metropolitics

Lockdown Experiences of the Youth of the Paris Banlieues

Jeanne Demoulin & Collectif Pop-Part & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-09-16T05:00:00Z

How did young people from working-class neighborhoods in France experience lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis? A collective survey conducted in different towns in the Paris suburbs highlights the resources they mobilized to cope with coronavirus.
The youth of working-class neighborhoods in France covers a diverse reality, particularly in terms of age, gender, origin, and religion (Kakpo 2006; Marlière 2011; Truong 2015). Nevertheless, they share a common experience of inequality, which the

- From the Field / lockdown, France, Covid-19, Île-de-France, coronavirus, youth, working-class neighborhoods, Paris region

Double Jeopardy for Single-Parent Families: When Housing Conditions and Lockdown Collide

Laure Crepin & Fanny Bugeja-Bloch & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-11-05T06:00:00Z

Single-parent families are among those households most affected by economic precarity and the current health crisis. In this paper, Laure Crepin and Fanny Bugeja-Bloch show that, in France, housing conditions for these families have been in decline since the early 2000s—long before the Covid lockdowns.
School closures and the shutdown of most shops and businesses, exhortations to work from home, short-time working (which has affected one in three private-sector employees in France), limits on

- From the Field / family, Covid-19, France, precarity, housing, coronavirus, inequalities, lockdown

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

2021-06-08T05:00:00Z

Ethnographic research in London, Mumbai, and Paris during Covid‑19 lockdowns reveals how civic associations filled the void left by state withdrawal and offered visions of hope for socially excluded populations.
Our current global “human, economic and social crisis” (UN 2020) was driven by a deadly virus and deepened by governments' dedication to market-oriented solutions and to disempowering people deemed to be obstacles to those solutions. The neoliberal state's initial reactions to the

- From the Field / associations, lockdown, Covid-19, coronavirus, activism, civic organizing, civic activism, London, Paris, Mumbai, pandemic, India, United Kingdom

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