Activities
Seminars/2009-2010 VESPA Program
Encounters… Interactions, definitions, and methods : a program for thinking and discussion.
The laboratory for research on the city and political spaces (Ville et Espaces Politiques), Canada Research Chair in Urbanity, Insecurity, and Political Action, invites you to participate in a reflection program on “urban encounters”, those that the city favours, those that it needs, those that we avoid ; encounters of the Other, encounters of the formal and the informal, encounters of the researcher and the subject, and encounters of the methods that allow for an appreciation of the latter. The city is made of encounters, just like research : what can we make of the tensions, the frictions, the stimulations, and the emotions that emerge from these encounters ? How can we study, how understand, how transform them ?
All afternoon seminars take place at the Urbanization Culture and Society Centre of the INRS, 385, Sherbrooke Street East, Montreal, Bring Your Own Sandwich.
Friday November 13, 2009 | 12:30-2 PM | Afternoon Seminar
“When Brussels and Montreal Meet for the Struggle against Socio-Spatial Segregation : Teachings from a Comparative Study between Cureghem and Parc-Extension”, by Muriel Sacco, Université libre de Brussels (ULB).
During the 1990’s, Brussels and Montreal adopted policies to counter socio-spatial segregation. By comparing the policies implemented in two neighbourhoods similar in spatial, social and demographic terms – Parc-Extension in Montreal, and Cureghem in Brussels – we sought to highlight the convergences and divergences that exist between these different policies. In this presentation, we will focus essentially on the local context in which these policies are implemented and the path of the actors involved so as to understand the aforementioned convergences and divergences.
Friday December 11, 2009 | 12:30-2 PM | Afternoon Seminar
“The Street Ballet : Informal Encounters and the Informality of the City”, by Godefroy Desrosiers-Lauzon and July Cossette, INRS-UCS
Via its demographic concentration and its hustle and bustle, the city poses questions regarding the boundaries between the formal and the informal – questions that can be formulated from the individual as well as the collective level, and the economic as well as the cultural level. This seminar will allow us to look further into the ways in which the formal and the informal are negotiated through the encounters with Other in the city ; the establishment of rules and their transgression ; the interrelation between formal and informal economic activities. July Cossette, who is finishing her Master’s degree in Research Practices and Public Action, will be presenting the results of a vast comparative review of informality in North America.
A MEETING BETWEEN THE SOCIOLOGIST AND THE FORMER GANG LEADER
Thursday January 14, 2010 | 4-6 PM | Grand Conference
A meeting between sociology and the former gang leader
Grand conference by Marie-Hélène Bacqué and Lamence Madzou
Authors of J’étais Chef de Gang (La Découverte)
Friday January 15, 2010 | 12:30-2 PM | Afternoon Seminar
Marie-Hélène Bacqué, Lamence Madzou and Pierre Roger Alain Philoctète
Research on Youth and Street Gangs
Does research on street gangs produce stigmatization ? What does the youth of St-Michel think of research, researchers and stigmatization ? An internship experience of “knowledge mobilization” in spaces of intervention : taking youth discourses into consideration. Based on the Research Practices and Public Action program, Alain Philoctète will present the results from his internship at the Maison d’Haïti, and Marie-Hélène Bacqué and Lamence Madzou will present their “meeting”. A discussion of the experience of knowledge production will follow the presentations.
Friday February 22 2010 | 12:30-2 PM | Afternoon Seminar
“The Cultural Encounter through the Intercultural Approach” by Marilena Liguori, INRS-UCS
Friday March 12, 2010 | 12:30-2 PM | Afternoon Seminar
“Transportation and Mobility Face-to-Face : Planning and Sociology”, by Antoine Noubouwo and Julie-Anne Boudreau, Institut national de la recherche scientifique – Urbanisation, Culture et Société (INRS-UCS).
Two outlooks on the organization of this world which moves, shifts, meets, and exchanges : that of “transportation planning” and that of “the sociology of mobility”. How can these two approaches converse with one another ? Reflections based on the example of persons with reduced mobility – those that are confronted with the difficulties of daily mobility. The case of the city of Rennes will be discussed in light of this interdisciplinary meeting. Persons with reduced mobility have the same needs, the same yearnings and the same desires as any other person. What is to be taken into account in order to facilitate their integration into systems of transportation that are evermore intelligent and complex ? How can we understand their experience of mobility ?
Thursday April 1, 2010 | 12:30-2PM | Afternoon Seminar
“The Encounter Within the Comparison : Tools, Approaches and Concepts” by Julien Rebotier, National Institute of Scientific Research – Urbanization, Culture and Society (INRS-UCS)
Formalizing a protocol for comparison is a delicate task in the social sciences. The objects compared, the topics undertaken, and the contexts involved often make it difficult to achieve comparative exercises that transcend the mere juxtaposition of elements side by side. Yet, comparison is essential to an understanding and evaluation of the studied objects, and to an improvement of the models being developed. This seminar will be an occasion to debate some of the major venues of methodological thought regarding the elaboration of protocols and practices of comparison – especially from the standpoint of sociology and geography. Such issues will be improved by the experience of each researcher.
