Metropolitics

An Interview with Marc Serra Solé: Barcelona's Citizens Forge Solidarities Through the State

Celina Su — 2026-04-07T05:00:00Z

How might progressive city administrations build the power they need for real policy wins? Celina Su gives us a preview of her book Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities, where she interviews Marc Serra Solé, of Barcelona en Comú, about their experiment with “new municipalism,” the centrality of participatory democracy in shaping and forwarding their robust affordability agenda, what happened when they shifted from building a social movement to governing inside City

- Interviews

What Is Worth Asking About Our Cities?

Naomi Adiv & Anant Maringanti & Harikrishnan Sasikumar — 2026-03-03T06:00:00Z

What is the state of urban theory from the Global South and how can local research simultaneously advance scholarly research and be a vehicle for advocacy? Dr. Naomi Adiv and Dr. Hari Sasikumar explore these questions in their conversation with Anant Maringanti.
A central guiding idea of our work at Metropolitics is to share the knowledge, concepts and practices that academic and activist scholars generate in contemporary cities. In addition to making scholarship public, the journal is

- Interviews / Global South, India, urbanism, Southern urbanism, Hyderabad

Unleashing Finance Capitalism in the City: An Interview with Isaac Rose, Author of The Rentier City

Jonathan Silver & Isaac Rose — 2025-06-24T05:00:00Z

Jonathan Silver interviews author and tenant organizer Isaac Rose about his book on housing financialization in Manchester, The Rentier City. They discuss the motivations for writing the book, how theory informs practice, and the influences that guided Rose as he wrote.
Isaac Rose, a tenant-union organizer in Manchester, recently launched a new book with Repeater, The Rentier City: Manchester and the Making of the Neoliberal Metropolis. In it, Rose unravels the causes of today's intensifying

- Interviews / housing, financialization, tenants, Manchester, United Kingdom, community organizing, gentrification, England, housing justice

A Place for Women

2025-01-21T06:00:00Z

For over 40 years, a feminist association called Apiaf, based in Toulouse in southwestern France, has been working with female victims of domestic violence. In this interview, members of the association talk about the central role of non-mixity in accommodating and assisting these women, thus guaranteeing a space of protection and emancipation.
Interview conducted by Pauline Delage.
Apiaf (Association pour l'Initiative Autonome des Femmes; "Association for Women's Autonomous Initiative") is

- Interviews / violence, women, non-mixity, associations, gender, feminism, activism

Can Universities Learn to Leave Behind Air Travel?

Tamara Ben Ari & Parke Wilde — 2024-10-22T05:00:00Z

At a time when global research is showing that aviation is a carbon-intensive form of transport whose growth absolutely must be stopped, shouldn't universities be the first to set an example? But can researchers, especially the youngest ones, do without these trips for their careers? How can researchers continue to work together, and what criteria should govern their behaviour?
Interview conducted by Thomas Évariste (for the Mobile Lives Forum), and Jean-Baptiste Frétigny, Maxime Huré and

- Interviews / aviation, mobility, university, Covid-19, climate change, research

Blueprints of Hope: How Architects Shape a Brighter Future

Nasser Golzari & Yara Sharif — 2024-10-15T05:00:00Z

In a conversation centered around the ongoing injustices in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, and the need for reconstruction and resistance to create conditions for change, Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari emphasize the importance of local involvement and long-term sustainability in approaches to reconstruction in post-conflict zones, and highlight the role of alternative frameworks in empowering local communities to reshape their own conditions and create sustainable solutions in the face of

- Interviews / Palestine, reconstruction, regeneration, resilience, alternative, genocide, urbicide, ecocide, Gaza, West Bank

“There Is No Excused Absence in Prison”

Tanisha Cannon & Dylan O'Donoghue — 2024-07-19T05:00:00Z

More than 150 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment, the fight to abolish forced labor in the United States continues. In this interview, Dylan O'Donoghue talks with Tanisha Cannon, organizer and managing director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, about her work campaigning for a California state constitutional amendment that would abolish slavery in prisons.
In fall 2023, Dylan O'Donoghue, a PhD candidate at Rutgers University–Camden, conducted an interview with Dr.

- Interviews / prison, labor, forced labor, prison labor, United States, California, slavery

Education Myths, Black Self-Determination, and University Accountability to the City

Christopher R. Rogers & Laura Wolf-Powers — 2024-03-08T06:00:00Z

Laura Wolf-Powers interviews scholar and community organizer Chris Rogers about his extensive work in Philadelphia. They discuss his journey to Penn and activism against the University of Pennsylvania's “parasitic relationship to Black Philadelphia,” including policing on campus, housing struggles, and efforts for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs).
---- Series: Black Power and Black Self-Determination in a New Time and New Spaces I'm Laura Wolf-Powers, a professor of urban planning at CUNY

- Interviews / Philadelphia, education, Black Lives Matter, Black politics, university, self-determination, housing, activism, Black Power, Movement for Black Lives

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

“Every Eviction is an Act of Violence”

Tara Raghuveer & Joshua Akers — 2021-03-23T06:00:00Z

Josh Akers interviews researcher, organizer, and activist Tara Raghuveer about her work with KC Tenants in Kansas City, Missouri, and with the Homes Guarantee. They discuss housing issues and activism in Kansas City and at the national level, and what the Covid‑19 pandemic has meant for housing struggles and the future of housing movements.
---- Series: Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research In early December 2020, Metropolitics editorial board member Josh

- Interviews / activism, video, housing, rental housing, tenants, community organizing, evictions, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, United States, Kansas City, Missouri