Friday 24 October 2025 | 14:00-16:30 | Espace Philippe Séguin (Aix-en-Provence)

"Guerillas in the bureaucracy", a look back at a classic North American work. The role of community city planners in municipalities and working-class neighbourhoods.

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Theme 2025-2026

Institutional activism and the making of the city

The purpose of the reading and research workshop. The aim of this workshop is to revisit the debates and social science texts on the ways in which cities have been governed since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is based on questions relating to the localised analysis of politics and responds to the need, experienced in our own research, to articulate and hold together three dimensions:

• Games and rivalries between social groups in urban spaces
• Political, partisan and institutional battles to govern the city
• Urban public policies: genealogy, instruments, actors and spatial effects

Organisational principles. These workshops take the form of work sessions lasting between 2 and 2.5 hours. Two to four texts (articles or chapters) are circulated two weeks before each workshop, combining theoretical, methodological and empirical dimensions.

Coordination and moderation of the 2025-2026 sessions : Claire Bénit-Gbaffou & Alice Daquin

More information on the reading group page