Metropolitics

The Emergence of Transnational Queer Organizing Across a Hardening US–Canada Border

Elizabeth Hessek — 2025-09-30T05:00:00Z

LGTBQ+ refugees in the United States not only face the violence of the nation's immigration policy but are also constrained by international agreements that limit Canada's ability to offer refugee status to them. Elizabeth Hessek describes how these challenges have created opportunities for transnational networks to support queer refugees wherever they may be.
As migration control has surfaced as a barometer of national sovereignty in public debate, recent migration scholarship has rejected

- From the Field / LGBTQ+, queer, community organizing, refugees, United States, Canada, North America, borders, immigration, immigration policy, networks

Immigration in the French Countryside

Julie Fromentin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2024-02-27T06:00:00Z

What place do immigrants occupy in the French countryside? By examining detailed data from the last five decades, Julie Fromentin shows that while there has been moderate growth in their numbers over this period, there has above all been considerable diversification in terms of their countries of origin and the places in which they settle.
Since the 2000s, French society has been marked by growing social and territorial inequalities (Lambert and Cayouette-Remblière 2021; Fleury et al. 2012).

- From the Field / settlement, inequalities, countryside, immigration, segregation, rural

A “Migration Crisis”? The Myths and Realities of France's Immigration Figures

Camille Gourdeau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-03-11T06:00:00Z

Is France experiencing a “migration crisis”? Based on a statistical analysis of immigration figures, Camille Gourdeau shows the extent to which immigration in France is stable in terms of numbers, nationalities of origin, and justifications for successful applications.
The expression “refugee crisis” or “migrant crisis,” which has rapidly gained ground in political and media discourse since 2015, has been widely called into question by researchers specialized in the subject: some decry the

- From the Field / immigration policy, immigration, integration, migration crisis, migrants, migration, asylum

Migration and Inequalities: The Importance of Social Class

2021-11-19T06:00:00Z

Since the 1990s, Anne-Catherine Wagner's research has focused on migrants from the most affluent classes in society. In this interview, she returns to the notion of international capital, which she used in her work to shed light on inequalities relating to mobility, particularly in her pioneering survey of “expat” executives in France.
Where does your interest in upper-class migration come from, and what do you see as the contribution made by work on this subject?
When I began my PhD

- Interviews / mobility, expatriation, globalization, social class, upper classes, migrants, immigration, migration, school, education, inequalities

The Belhoumi Family and the Sociologist

Adèle Momméja & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-10-15T05:00:00Z

What are the objective and intimate conditions for the social ascension of the children of immigrants? And what roles do family relationships—between parents and children, but also between brothers and sisters—and residential rootedness play in this process? Stéphane Beaud's 2018 book La France des Belhoumi takes the form of a long-term biographical study that explores the differences in social trajectories between genders and generations within a family of Algerian origin.
The French

- Reviews / immigration, Algerians, social trajectories, France, North Africans, Algeria, working classes, education, upbringing, family, youth

Queens, New York: A Global Microcosm

Susie J. Tanenbaum — 2021-05-04T05:00:00Z

Susie J. Tanenbaum reviews Immigrant Crossroads: Globalization, Incorporation, and Placemaking in Queens, New York, highlighting how the new edited volume by Tarry Hum, Ron Hayduk, François Pierre-Louis, Jr., and Michael Alan Krasner uses the case of Queens, New York, to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary immigration issues in a hyper-diverse urban setting and expands the field of immigration studies in promising ways.
On January 28, 2017, an executive order from

- Reviews / Queens, New York, migration, immigration, migrants, immigrant incorporation, diversity, hyper-diversity, globalization, placemaking, Donald Trump

The Asylum Story: Narrative Capital and International Protection

Emily Reid — 2021-02-02T06:00:00Z

Obtaining international protection relies upon an ability to successfully navigate the host country's asylum regime. In France, the récit de vie, or asylum story, is critical to this process. An asylum seeker must craft their story with the cultural expectations of the assessor in mind. The shaping of the asylum story can be seen as an act of political protest.
Names and identifying details have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals' stories.
The role of the asylum story within

- From the Field / asylum, migrants, migration, borders, France, immigration, immigration control, Europe

Post-Election Dispatches from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

Jamie Longazel — 2020-12-22T06:00:00Z

Jamie Longazel reflects on organizing for the 2020 general election in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A longtime Democratic stronghold, the County voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Longazel discusses the role deindustrialization, job loss, and immigration have played in election politics.
On a warm August evening in 2018, I gave a speech outside of a Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The stage was the top of a grassy hill that sloped downward from a shopping-center parking lot.

- From the Field / community organizing, civic organizing, mobilization, US election, presidential election, elections, vote, Donald Trump, immigration, Latinx, protest, United States, Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk — 2019-06-04T05:00:00Z

The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New York City and Paris, Stephen Ruszczyk shows how cities can strengthen mobility for undocumented youths, and for all residents, regardless of legal status.
Five years after Liang's parents left him and their hometown of Wenzhou in southeastern China, Liang, who was then 13 years old, reunited with them in central Paris. He lacked a visa to enter France, and had taken a plane,

- From the Field / RESF, immigration, immigration control, immigration policy, youth, undocumented youth, illegality, public transportation, transport, mass transit, Paris, New York, Featured

The Treatment of “North Africans” in 1960s Urban Renewal in France

Janoé Vulbeau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-02-01T06:00:00Z

While France's 1960s urban renewal has been studied in terms of its effects on the working classes, its racial dimension has rarely been highlighted. Janoé Vulbeau examines two neighborhoods in the northern cities of Lille and Roubaix, considered in light of Henri Coing's pioneering Paris study, and shows how the development of what amounts to a settlement policy was partly based on the grouping together of, and discrimination against, “North Africans.”
The urban-renewal policies implemented

- Essays / France, immigration, urban renewal, Algerian War, discrimination, Roubaix, Lille, settlement, population, Hauts-de-France, Northern France, decolonization, Nord–Pas-de-Calais