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  (2019) Urban activism in Zagreb (Croatia)

  27 July, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  Urban activism in Zagreb Lured by the 29th INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action: https://www.inura.org/v2/) conference, I had the opportunity to visit Zagreb and better know some of the urban struggles that took place there over the last decade. The programme was very intense, with morning and afternoon tours in addition to evening public debates (https://inura19.wordpress.com/). It was a full immersion in the history and conflicts of the city, led by very well (...)
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  (2019) Un día de verano en Copenhague

  21 July, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  Un sábado de julio en Copenhague No tengo mucho que hacer. Los planes se han retirado a sus cuarteles, así que el tiempo puede dar rienda suelta a su naturaleza. Marco tres puntos en el mapa pero no fijo ninguna ruta, ni siquiera estoy convencido de querer ir allí. Las últimas veces que los visité era diciembre. El frío y el viento cortaban el rostro. La oscuridad se cernía sin compasión poco más allá de las dos de la tarde. Mis recuerdos son casi niebla. Hoy no. El sol es generoso, aunque (...)
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  (2019) Socio-spatial segregation in the periphery of Stockholm (Sweden)

  8 July, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  A walking visit and conversation with René León Rosales and Christophe Foultier. And notes for guiding future research. Fittja, Botkyrka (Sweden), May 2019. René works as a researcher at the Mångkulturellt centrum-MKC (https://mkcentrum.se/) which is a municipal foundation devoted to work on issues of cultural diversity and migration (”verkar för ett samhälle där mångfalden reflekteras i den nationella självbilden och där migration är en självklar del i det svenska kulturarvet”). He conducted his (...)
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  (2018) Los discursos sobre los movimientos sociales: ¿auge, declive, efectos?

  23 June 2018, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  A raíz de una invitación recibida para participar en un taller sobre análisis crítico del discurso en Barcelona, escribí unos breves apuntes sobre el origen académico y político del estudio sobre los movimientos sociales. Un hilo conductor de esta reflexión es la perspectiva foucaultiana que invita a cuestionarse los conceptos que utilizamos y su imbricación con las relaciones de poder (ver una entrada anterior en este blog). Aunque ese cuestionamiento puede sugerir una posición ajena al objeto de (...)
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  (2018) Vertical and horizontal relations: What is ‘society’ about?

  28 May 2018, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  A regular activity of an academic is to read scientific papers. In social sciences, ‘scientific’ does not necessarily mean that a paper is based on a detailed empirical research. Very often, many social scientists intend to offer general overviews about a topic by collecting various pieces of others’ research and providing comprehensive interpretations. This is what many identify as ‘theory’. In natural sciences this is better-known as ‘meta-studies’ although these are still meant to summarise the (...)
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  (2018) Foucauldian discourse analysis

  26 April 2018, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  I was recently asked by PhD students of sociology to deliver a lecture on discourse analysis according to Michel Foucault’s insights. After a very smooth negotiation, it was my pleasure to concede. However, I am still concerned about the limitations that such a perspective might entail for the purposes of (critical) qualitative discourse analysis. First of all, this is because Foucault himself was more worried about theory than methods, in spite of some exceptions. Secondly, this author was (...)
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  (2017) What is a City?

  13 October 2017, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  What is a City? This question is coming back to my mind once and again, no matter how much stuff from the urban studies field I have read over the last 25 years. The sociological approach to the definition of cities is deeply influenced by the views of the founders (Marx-Engels, Durkheim and Weber) but perhaps the Chicago School representatives (Park, Burgess, Wirth, etc.) were more successful when it came to set a dominant standard in academia. Yesterday I attended a seminar where three (...)
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  (2017) La revolución de los paraguas en Hong Kong, tres años después: una represión prolongada

  13 October 2017, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  https://www.elsaltodiario.com/mapas/la-revolucion-de-los-paraguas-tres-anos-despues-una-represion-prolongada Publicado en El Salto, 13/9/2017 La revolución de los paraguas tres años después: una represión prolongada Desde el 28 de septiembre hasta el 15 de diciembre de 2014 –se cuenta convencionalmente como 79 días o dos meses y medio de ocupaciones callejeras– tuve la oportunidad de presenciar la movilización más intensa en favor de la democracia que se ha realizado en Hong Kong. Fue una feliz (...)
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  (2017) Umbrella Movement: Three Years Later, Protracted Repression

  5 September 2017, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  Umbrella Movement: Three Years Later, Protracted Repression From 28th September to 15th December 2014 (it is conventionally counted as 79 days, or two and a half months, of street occupations) I had the opportunity to witness the most intense pro-democracy mobilisation that ever occurred in Hong Kong (HK). It was a lucky coincidence that another Occupy-like movement affected me so deeply after my previous engagement in the 15M or Indignados movement in Spain from May 2011 until I left (...)
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  (2017) Sociological Imagination is Critical Reason at Work [ENG]

  31 August 2017, by Miguel Angel Martinez
  Sociological Imagination is Critical Reason at Work Every time I suggest my students to read Wright Mills’ book “The Sociological Imagination” (1959), especially his famous Appendix “On Intellectual Craftsmanship” I feel glad when hearing their reactions and I also remember my own joy when I read it for the first time long time ago. Perhaps, a very tricky question is that the core tenets of the book are not much about imagination in a postmodern sense. Quite the contrary, Mills outlines the (...)

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