This session will take place in room B019 (Bienvenüe Building) and will be broadcast via videoconference. Zoom link: https://univ-eiffel.zoom.us/j/87368732482

Meeting ID: 873 6873 2482
Password: LATTS2025

“The emergence of the Yellow Vests movement on 17 November 2018 took many observers by surprise. How did a call for blockades against a tax on diesel manage to mobilise the working classes on such a massive scale? Why did the demands focus on ‘purchasing power’ and ‘tax justice’? In what way do the Yellow Vests form part of a renewal of protest?
This book shows that this revolt stems less from conflict in the sphere of production than from a crisis in the social reproduction of working-class households in peri-urban and rural areas. It thus offers a reinterpretation of the Marxist legacy, moving beyond questions of production, to highlight the central role of issues of reproduction, embedded within the domestic and family sphere. At the roundabouts, the Yellow Vests were able to invent their own ways of protesting, outside the established frameworks of protest, to assert a demand for popular sovereignty in the face of the elites.
The findings of this study thus open up a discussion on how to link social issues, lifestyles and environmental concerns in the context of climate change.”

“This book offers a fresh perspective on the Yellow Vests movement and, more broadly, on protests in defence of purchasing power, demonstrating how these popular uprisings reflect social relations of reproduction rather than relations of production. It thus highlights the central role of the family, women and intergenerational solidarity in the struggle against the high cost of living. Richly documented by a long-term study combining ethnography, interviews and statistics, this book also highlights the role of roundabouts in the dynamics of a movement with no formal organisation or official leader. Finally, it discusses transition policies and the need to take into account the conditions of reproduction of the working classes in order to successfully green our societies.”

Book: The Sociology of the Yellow Vests: Reproduction and Social Issues

The article LATTS Seminar – The Sociology of the Yellow Vests first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The Tripode research group (Digital Transitions – Regulation, Infrastructures, Practices, Data), in collaboration with the Politics, Markets and Urban Worlds (PMMU) research area at LATTS, is pleased to invite you to a seminar on the book *Housing under Platform Capitalism: The Contentious Regulation of Short-Term Rentals in European Cities* (University of California Press, 2025). Following a presentation by the three authors, Thomas Aguilera (Sciences Po Rennes, Arènes), Francesca Artioli (Université Paris-Est Créteil, Lab’Urba) and Claire Colomb (University of Cambridge), the discussion will be moderated by Lise Fourdrignier (UGE, LATTS) and Antoine Courmont (UGE, LATTS).

Summary of the book “Housing Under Platform Capitalism”

Fifteen years after the launch of Airbnb, most cities around the world have introduced plans to regulate these markets. However, there is a wide variety of governance and regulatory approaches across different regions, particularly in Europe. Drawing on comparative, multi-level research and employing mixed methods across twelve major European cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, Vienna), we highlight and explain the development of different types of regulatory regimes. In some cities, public policies aim to curb market development in order to protect the stock of affordable housing for permanent residents or to limit the effects of overtourism; in other cities, by contrast, regulations are designed to support the market in order to legalise it, tax it and make their territory attractive.

This variety of responses can be explained by institutional and socio-economic factors linked to welfare state systems, types of urban capitalism and housing markets, but also by the political processes of mobilisation involving citizens’ movements, property and land owners, financial actors, the tourism and housing sectors, and local and national governments. This book examines the capacity of states and local governments to govern cities, housing markets, tourism and, more generally, platform capitalism. It thus contributes to the comparative study of multi-level governance, the sociology of the state and the comparative political economy of capitalisms.

The article Tripode / PMMU Seminar first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

LATTS is pleased to invite you to the next session of its general seminar, which will take place on Monday 20 April 2026 at 2 pm. The session will focus on the book Vivre au camping. Un mal-logement des classes populaires (Living on a campsite: Substandard housing for the working classes), published by Seuil in 2024.

Gaspard Lion (Sorbonne Paris Nord University) will present his book, followed by a discussion led by Yoan Miot, after which there will be an opportunity for a Q&A session with the audience.

This session will take place in room B015 (Bienvenüe Building) and will be broadcast via videoconference.

Join the Zoom meeting: https://univ-eiffel.zoom.us/j/84740373736
Meeting ID: 847 4037 3736
Password: LATTS2026

Book summary: “Life on the campsite: Substandard housing for the working classes”

The surge in house prices that began in the 2000s has led to increasingly widespread social hardship across France. Neither social housing nor the principle of an enforceable right to housing has provided satisfactory solutions, and the number of people living in substandard accommodation and the homeless has continued to rise. Sociologist Gaspard Lion identifies a new phenomenon reflecting this major social crisis: ‘residential camping’, which has taken hold in France in the same way as American trailer parks. Based on an ethnographic study conducted through immersion in five campsites in the Paris region over four years, this book captures, in all their diversity and intimacy, the daily lives of those who have made camping their home. Thus, this book reveals the social condition of a growing segment of the working classes who live unnoticed on the fringes of major cities, and exposes a hitherto unexplored form of housing and precariousness, revealing the structural changes at work in French society.

Gaspard Lion is a sociologist and senior lecturer at Sorbonne Paris Nord University. His research focuses on the working classes and substandard and unconventional forms of housing.

See the book *Living on the Campsite: Substandard Housing for the Working Classes*

The article LATTS Seminar – Life on a campsite first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Daniel Florentin and Emile Balembois will present their work on the ANR Ecomodam project and the challenges posed by planetary boundaries.

A different approach to measurement and a shift in priorities in urban projects. Insights into the Ecomodam project – Daniel Florentin

As part of the ANR Ecomodam project, we are examining the issue of greening in spatial planning and how this is reflected in the practices and tools of (public) planners. The challenge is to understand the challenges involved in this greening process, to observe the transformations in professional practices at work, and to equip certain planners to take into account new metrics related to materials, living organisms or energy. The presentation will offer a dual account of the transformations identified in our various fields of study and the experiments underway regarding the transformation of planning management tools, particularly assessments. These empirical observations raise questions about the different versions of greening that coexist and the forms of friction that drive them.

What role do planetary boundaries play in informing the development of French municipal and inter-municipal policies? – Emile Balembois

This presentation reports on doctoral research into the use of territorialisations of the planetary boundaries framework. The research comprises an interdisciplinary research-intervention approach centred on the development of territorialisations and the analysis of their effects. It was conducted in collaboration with members of a network of stakeholders at the (inter)municipal level (France Villes et Territoires Durables). The presentation will first outline the research approach and its results. It will then focus on the analysis of the discourses observed throughout this research, which justify the mobilisation of planetary boundaries. These discourses highlight the motivations emerging around a problem that inter-municipal bodies must resolve, for which planetary boundaries facilitate early identification and represent a means of addressing it subsequently. The analysis of these mobilisations will reveal the agenda-setting strategies at work. These revolve around a tension between local environmental problems and engagement with global issues.

The article PMMU Seminar – Ecomodam and planetary boundaries first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Money and democracy

• Ariel Wilkis (National University of San Martín, CONICET) – Debt and democracy: the financial lives of households as a political test for governments in Argentina (1983–2023)
• Benjamin Lemoine (CNRS) – When the State becomes a cash-flow machine: Debt and the seizure of public assets

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘Money and democracy’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Money and (release from) detention

• Valérian Benazeth (Cesdip, Paris Saclay) – Deconstructing the ‘worship of money’ as a way out of delinquency: a necessary shift in the processes of desistance?
• Melchior Simioni (University of Strasbourg, Sage) – Prison money: between disciplinary mechanism and instrument of resistance.

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘Money and (release from) detention’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Pensioners’ money

• Marion ARNAUD (University of Lorraine – SIÂGE Chair) “Economic independence and inequalities among pensioners in a working-class village in Occitania”
• Jeanne Lazarus (CNRS Sciences Po, Centre for the Sociology of Organisations), Clara D. (INRAE – Cesaer), and Sabine Rozier (Paris Dauphine University – PSL – IRISSO) “Financial disengagement and vulnerability in the banking sector”.

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘Pensioners’ money’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

“Introduction to crypto-assets”

• Aminata Coly (Université Gustave Eiffel – Orange Labs, LATTS) – Trying out crypto: Young adults and the diversity of engagement with crypto-asset investments in France.
• Mariana Luzzi (National University of San Martín, CONICET) and María Soledad Sánchez (CONICET – EIDAES/UNSAM) – Crypto activists or novice investors? How cryptocurrencies are shaping new forms of participation in finance among young Argentinians.

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘Introduction to crypto-assets’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The heteronormativity of money

• David Distelrath (Université Paris Cité – LADYSS) – “The credit score, a tool for LGBT+ exclusion: understanding ‘credit heteronormativity’ in rural America”
• Caroline Henchoz and Stéphanie Monay – (HETS Lausanne) ‘Homoney: bringing money out of the closet. Results of an exploratory survey of same-sex couples in French-speaking Switzerland’

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘The heteronormativity of money’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Food and budgets

• Erwan Le Méner – The diets of middle-class households in suburban areas in the light of their budgets: between making do and extravagance.
• Ana Perrin-Heredia – Tight budgets and eating habits

The article Domestic Money Seminar – ‘Food and budgets’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

It will take place at the École des Mines de Paris on Friday May 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. To attend, please register here. 

This seminar is organized by the Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3) and the project “Politiques de la sobriété énergétique” (SOBREPOL, an ADEME-ENPC project). 

It is organized by Claire Le Renard (ENPC-LATTS / Projet SOBREPOL), Jeremy Bouillet (EDF R&D / Projet SOBREPOL), Catherine Grandclément (EDF R&D / i3-CRG), Alexandre Mallard (i3-CSI).

Abundance and dependence, extraction and restriction. A conversation on consumption as a political issue with Elizabeth Shove and Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier

The context of the war in Iran is once again shining a spotlight on Western countries’ energy dependencies, even as the debates on sufficiency launched four years ago at the start of the war in Ukraine appear to have had only limited impact on consumption patterns. These complex effects of resource supply tensions on consumption are also illustrated by other recent events, beyond energy issues per se. For instance the spectre of fertiliser shortages linked to the disruption of international trade is reinforcing growing long-term concerns about food sovereignty in a country like France, which used to see itself as a major agricultural nation. The North-South inequalities underpinning the consumption of a whole range of products (coffee, palm oil, soya, but also carbon offsetting, etc.) can be ignored less and less as the political underpinnings of the construction of transnational supply chains become visible. To what extent do these phenomena challenge the contemporary analysis of the link between consumption and the markets that sustain it?

Taking stock of the renewed focus on tensions within resource supply chains and their effects on consumption, the seminar aims to foster dialogue between two academic strands concerned with the connections between the worlds of production and everyday consumption, and their political implications: the theory of practices and the social study of markets.

Practice theory and the sociology of markets share a common commitment to the empirical grounding of their work and the importance accorded to materiality, moving away from the symmetrical programmatic monoliths of structures versus the individual. Much work within the theory of practices has focused on sustainable consumption and has shown how the very nature of practices—far more than individual choices, their synchronisation and their interconnections—explains levels of consumption of water, energy and digital services, for example, and creates collective dependencies that are highly resistant to attempts at change. The concept of ‘demand’ (for energy, water, materials, land, etc.), often invoked by public policymakers and industry, has, from this perspective, been the subject of in-depth examination, revealing that it is an ‘outcome’ of social practices rather than a starting point (Rinkinen, Shove and Marsden, 2020). ‘Demand’ has also been of interest to market sociology, which, through numerous case studies, has highlighted the circular relationship it maintains with supply. Viewed from this perspective and situated within the context of an economy based on mass consumption, green consumption appears, at first glance, to be ineffective in addressing environmental challenges (Dubuisson-Quellier, 2022). Research on political consumption, and ‘contested’ or ‘concerned’ markets, has shown how consumption is embedded in collective dynamics, conflicts and negotiations that extend beyond the mere completion of transactions, and conversely, how these can sometimes also serve as instruments of governance.

This seminar invites an open discussion on these issues. We will invite two specialists, Elizabeth Shove and Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier, to share their views before opening the floor for comments and discussion.

Dubuisson-Quellier, Sophie. 2022. « How does affluent consumption come to consumers? A research agenda for exploring the foundations and lock-ins of affluent consumption ». Consumption and Society 1 (1) : 31 50. https://doi.org/10.1332/UHIW3894.

Rinkinen, Jenny, Elizabeth Shove, et Greg Marsden. 2020. Conceptualising Demand: A Distinctive Approach to Consumption and Practice. London : Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003029113.

The article Seminar « Abundance and dependence, extraction and restriction. » first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

LATTS is pleased to invite you to the next session of its general seminar, which will take place on Monday 11 May 2026 at 2pm. The session will focus on the book Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology, published by Zone Books in 2024.

Liliana Doganova will present her book, followed by a discussion led by Emmanuelle Santoire, before opening the floor to questions from the audience.

This session will take place in Room B015 (Bienvenüe Building, Champs-sur-Marne) and will be broadcast via videoconference.

Join the Zoom meeting: https://univ-eiffel.zoom.us/j/84280301187
Meeting ID: 842 8030 1187
Passcode: LATTS2026

Summary of the book

Forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels beg a nagging question: have we lost our capacity to act on the future? Liliana Doganova’s book sheds new light on this anxious query. It argues that our relationship to the future has been trapped in the gears of a device called discounting. While its incidence remains little known, discounting has long been entrenched in market and policy practices, shaping the ways firms and governments look to the future and make decisions accordingly. Thus, a sociological account of discounting formulas has become urgent.

Discounting means valuing things through the flows of costs and benefits that they are likely to generate in the future, with these future flows being literally dis-counted as they are translated in the present. How have we come to think of the future, and of valuation, in such terms? Building on original empirical research in the historical sociology of discounting, Doganova takes us to some of the sites and moments in which discounting took shape and gained momentum: valuation of European forests in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; economic theories devised in the early 1900s; debates over business strategies in the postwar era; investor-state disputes over the nationalization of natural resources; and drug development in the biopharmaceutical industry today. Weaving these threads together, the book pleads for an understanding of discounting as a political technology, and of the future as a contested domain.

Liliana Doganova is a researcher at the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation at the École des Mines de Paris, Université Paris Sciences & Lettres. At the crossroads of economic sociology and the sociology of science and technology, her work has focused on business models, the valorization of public research and the markets for bio- and eco-technologies.

Discounting the Future. The Ascendancy of a Political Technology

The article LATTS Seminar – Discounting the Future first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.