Reading workshop
"Governing the city
Reading and research workshop on "Governing the city".
Coordination and moderation of the 2025-2026 sessions
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 20th 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:
To do this, we thought it would be useful, indeed necessary, to have a 'library', if not a common one, then at least a shared one, by taking the time to read together bodies of scientific texts at this intersection. The principle of the workshop is based on reading and debating these scientific texts - fundamental or emerging - from our multiple perspectives in terms of disciplines, research subjects and themes, and scientific maturity. The Reading and Research Workshop is open to all (young and experienced researchers, MESOPOLHIS researchers and researchers from elsewhere, all interested disciplines) and offers a convivial forum for discussion.
Each year is devoted to a theme and a body of text, coordinated by two researchers.
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.
The session begins with a short presentation of the authors and the texts selected by the coordinators, followed by a free discussion of both the texts and the way in which each of us can mobilise their dimensions (theoretical, conceptual, methodological, empirical, etc.) within our own research.
2025-2026. Institutional activism and the making of the city
Institutional activism can be broadly defined as "the action of individuals (bureaucrats and elected representatives) who act from the public institution to which they belong, to bring about change in the name of a cause" (Abers, 2019). This notion is explored in particular in countries that have experienced revolutionary moments or reformist parentheses (the United States after the civil rights movement, South Africa in the aftermath of the Second World War, etc.).apartheidIt has also been used more widely in certain thematic studies (feminist and environmental struggles within public institutions, corporate diversity policies). But it remains little known in France and has not always been consolidated, or sufficiently compared with more generic work on the city, its production and its government.
By placing the city as the object of research in relation to that of institutional activism, the aim is to analyse the practices of 'institutional activists' by grasping the way in which they are produced in and by the urban space, while at the same time helping to produce it. In particular, we seek to link the study of agents' dispositions, positions and trajectories with that of the substantial effects of their practices on the construction and implementation of public policies in the urban space.
This intersection raises two questions:
- What do the day-to-day practices of these institutional activists - more or less public or discreet, individual or collective - have to do with the city?
- How can the urban object be used to anchor, read and operationalise the concept of institutional activism differently?
| Theme | Author(s) | Date and place | Text(s) | Report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction - Presentation of the framework and initial readings on the concept | Coming soon | 19 September 2025, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| A look back at a classic North American work. The role of community city planners in municipalities and working-class neighbourhoods | Needleman & Needleman, Guerillas in the bureaucracy | 31 October 2025, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| Institutional activism, bureaucratic activism: the revival of Brazilian studies | Rebecca Abers | 12 December 2025, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| The French critical tradition: work, militant reconversion and the agentivity of local civil servants - an illusion? | Bourdieu, Tissot, Jeannot | 6 February 2026, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| Special session organised by Axis 4 of MESOPOLHIS | Collective work edited by Claire Bénit-Gbaffou | 20 February 2026, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | Local Officials and the Struggle to Transform Cities. A view from post-apartheid South Africa (UCL Press, 2024) | |
| Cause-driven entrepreneurs and organisational transformation | Coming soon | 13 March 2026, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| Lessons from Latin America (2). Activists in the State: transforming or legitimising public action in the neighbourhood? | Coming soon | 17 April 2026, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS | ||
| Open session | Coming soon | 12 June 2026, 2pm-4.30pm, EPS |
NB: the texts are posted online two weeks before each session.
Participate
The workshop is open to everyone!
Interested parties are invited to register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HRGJGVShOnXq9AEJYSwY0B9OJr_JkWQmkoU55evItiI/edit