Axis 4 & Urban Studies seminar: «Vivre et penser la métropole marseillaise en sociologue», in honour of André Donzel and presentation of his book "Explorer Marseille. De la cité à la métropole"."

Thursday 18 December 2025 | 10 a.m. - 12.30 p.m. | Mmsh, Duby Room

Event organised by Axis 4: «Socio-spatial dynamics and political mobilisation» and the «Urban Studies» cross-cutting theme» of MESOPOLHIS.

To mark the publication of his latest book, we welcome the sociologist André Donzel who, throughout his career, has never ceased to’Exploring Marseille from city to metropolis to use the title and subtitle of the book (Presses universitaires de Provence). André Donzel joined the CNRS in 1980 and the Laboratoire méditerranéen de sociologie (LAMES) in 1998. Throughout his research career, he has published a large body of work on the processes of metropolisation in Marseille: in addition to editing Metropolisation, governance and citizenship (Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001), he is the author of a trilogy on urban dynamics in Marseilles: Marseille the city experience (Anthropos, 1998), The New Spirit of Marseille (L'Harmattan, 2014), which closes with this Explore Marseille (PUP, 2025) [see also the André Donzel collection at the MMSH media library].

This session is devoted to the presentation and discussion of this latest work on the paradigm of the city of Marseilles as much as on its metropolisation process. How can the study of a particular area, over several decades, contribute, through an increase in generality, to detailed and in-depth knowledge of changes in local power, its urban system, its political economy, its institutional recompositions and its civil society? What research protocol can help us to avoid localism, and in this case a certain «Marseillology» which, through idiosyncrasy, would make the case of Marseilles exceptional and constitute a kind of «locality'?« local trap »Epistemology?

The discussion in this session will be led by Claire Bénit (geographer and urban planner, Aix-Marseille University, MESOPOLHIS) and Nicolas Maisetti (sociologist, Université Paris 8, LAVUE).

This presentation is the first of two opportunities to honour André Donzel. The second will take place in the course of 2026 and will focus on the history, developments and prospects of French Marxist urban sociology, and even of what has been defined as a «French school of urban sociology».

Programme :

10am-10.15am. Introduction to the morning session and presentation of André Donzel's career by Cesare Mattina and Sylvie Chiousse

10.15am-11am. Presentation of André Donzel's book, Exploring Marseille. From city to metropolis, Aix-en-Provence, PUP

11.00am-11.30am. Discussion of the book by Claire Bénit and Nicolas Maisetti

11.30am-12.30pm. Discussion

Book summary:

As far back as it goes, Marseilles is defined as a political society: a «city» in the Hellenistic sense of the term. Through the turbulence of twenty-six centuries of history, the paradigm of the city has never ceased to infuse local society, its spatial, social and even mental structures, and many traces of this original matrix can still be found in the city. Changes in the scale of urban development from the nineteenth century onwards have had a major impact on the city.^e However, in the 20th century, the foundations of Marseilles' civic tradition were largely called into question in territorial, economic, social and political terms. A new institutional horizon is gradually emerging: the metropolis. Officialised in 2014, the metropolitan project remains controversial. The real improvement in the employment area's economic performance at the turn of the 21st century has been a major factor in its success.^e The 20th century saw a steady increase in social and environmental inequalities within the metropolis, and an unprecedented centralisation of territorial administration. Against this backdrop, culture, in its various forms, became a decisive vector for socialisation. It nurtures the attachment of the people of Marseille to their city, fosters consensus between the different components of local society and strengthens the city's sense of identity. soft power of the city on a national and even international scale.