FFJ-MICHELIN FOUNDATION WORKSHOP

Urban Mobilities
in the 21st Century
6 - 7 July 2021
Online | In English
10.00 - 12.35 (France) | 17.00 - 19.35 (Japan) | 11.00 - 13.35 (Turkey)
Registration: forms.gle/su6TjF9YcBAz7Cxk8
Contact: events_ffj@ehess.fr
In an increasingly fluid world, where everything from tangible and intangible goods to services,
ideologies, money, assets and people are “on the move”, despite the current halt due to theongoing pandemic, urban mobility has become a major issue of consideration for all societies
from different stages of development. Among various groups that contemplate on the matterof mobility, there are scholars, policy-makers, public and private organizations that operate
at international, national and local scales as well as citizens themselves. Mobility is alsoa very comprehensive topic, which is not limited solely to the realm of transport, althoughmultimodal transport occupies an important space in it. In addition to the changing modesof city transport under various influences in the 21st century, the topic of urban mobility also
looks at the actual physical move between/within geographies of formal and informal socialgroups, such as immigrants, translocal traders and the urban proletariat (aka the mobilitypoor) on the one hand, and investors, researchers, expatriates and the celebrity (aka kinetic
elites) on the other. The urban (im)mobility of different social groups within a particular city
in terms of their access to the basic needs, including housing, transport, and other social
services creates still another significant dimension. Furthermore, how the city with all its
spaces is shaped by these different practices of mobility and it affects them in turn is a major
study subject too. Hence, this workshop aims to bring together examples of urban mobilities
in the 21st century from different geographical contexts in order to question the underlying
factors behind this contemporary urban phenomenon and its outcomes by studying it fromdifferent angles.

Programme
6th July 2021
10.00-12.35 (France) | 17.00-19.35 (Japan)
11.00-13.35 (Turkey)
10.00 | Opening Remarks
Sébastien Lechevalier (FFJ-EHESS, France), Pierre-Édouard Sorel (Michelin, France),
Meriç Kırmızı (FFJ, Ondokuz Mayıs University, France)

Session 1

Moderator: Marion Lagadic (University of Oxford, United Kingdom)

10.15 | The revival of a declining shopping street in the old inner-ring area
through the vigorous action of Chinese immigrants; the case of Osaka

Toshio Mizuuchi (Urban Research Plaza, Osaka City University, Japan), Lijun Lu (Fukuoka
Prefectural University, Japan), Zechuan Zhu (Osaka City University, Japan)

10.35 | Cars and marionettes: questioning people’s acceptance of artificial

intelligence in spite of fear, with a focus on autonomous vehicles
Federico Cugurullo (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

10.55 | Urban design as a tool for building bridging ties
Alp Arısoy (Urban.koop, Turkey)

11.15 | Break
11.25 | From pedestrianization to gentrification: micromobility, communitybased entrepreneurs and the re-branding of milan’s chinatown
Lidia Manzo (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)

11.45 | Thinking of mobile urbanity in time of forced immobility
Paola Piscitelli (University of Hamburg, Germany)

12.05 | Discussion
12.35 | Concluding Remarks

Marion Lagadic (FFJ, University of Oxford, United Kingdom)

7th July 2021
10.00-12.20 (France) | 17.00-19.20 (Japan)
11.00-13.20 (Turkey)
Session 2
Moderator: Alexandre Faure (FFJ-EHESS, France)

10.00 | Residential mobility and politics of pragmatism amidst extreme
inequality: The case of the Community Housing Movement in Hong Kong
Geerhardt Kornatowski (Kyushu University, Japan)

10.20 | Residential mobility of welfare recipients in an environment of
universal welfare rights : on the example of public assistance recipientsin nishinari ward, osaka city, japan
Johannes Kiener (Saitama University, Japan)

10.40 | Minibuses of Istanbul / Istanbul of minibuses: reading patterns of
informality through mobility

Melis Oğuz (Beykent University, Turkey)

11.00 | Break
11.10 | Up and around: transnational elites, far commuting and migrationsin the pandemic Alps

Magda Bolzoni (University of Turin, Italy)

11.30 | The crisis of the contemporary city - socio-economic effects ofcommercial, residential and mobility changes
Meriç Kırmızı (FFJ, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Turkey)

11.50 | Discussion
12.10 | Concluding Remarks

Alexandre Faure (FFJ-EHESS, France)Speakers
Sébastien Lechevalier (President of FFJ, Professor at
EHESS)
Sébastien Lechevalier is an economist and a professor at School of Advanced Studies
in the Social Sciences, Paris (EHESS). He is specialised in Japanese economy andAsian capitalisms. He is also the founder and president of the Fondation France‑Japon
de l’EHESS (FFJ). He has been a visiting professor at various universities in Japan,
including Tokyo University, Kyoto University, Hitotsubashi University, Waseda
University and Doshisha University.

Pierre-Édouard Sorel (Michelin)
Pierre-Édouard Sorel started his career with the Renault car company in Istanbul,
Turkey, before joining in various product marketing positions in France. He has beenworking for Michelin for the last 15 years, in the areas of sales, market intelligence,and marketing as a segment manager and entrepreneur to bring new innovations to
the market. Since June 2020, he has joined the Movin’On Ecosystem within Michelin
to promote sustainable mobility and ecosystem innovations. He received his master’s
degree in management with a specialization in marketing from the École des hautesétudes commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris) in 2008.

Meriç Kırmızı (Assistant Professor, Ondokuz Mayıs
University, Turkey and 2020 FFJ/Michelin Foundation
Fellow, EHESS, Paris)
Meriç Kırmızı has been teaching and doing research in the field of urban sociology as
an assistant professor in sociology at the Faculty of Science and Letters of Ondokuz
Mayıs University (Turkey) since January 2018. She received her PhD degree in
Human Sciences in the Graduate School of Human Sciences of Osaka University, andfinished with her tasks as a research fellow at Urban Research Plaza in Osaka City
University in March 2017. Before she arrived in Japan as a MEXT Research Student
in April 2012, she received an M.S. degree in sociology from the Faculty of Arts andSciences of Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey). Her research interests are post-industrial urbanchange, gentrification, area revitalization, mobility, and urban commons in Japanese and Turkish cities.

Title: The crisis of the contemporary city - socio-economic effects ofcommercial, residential and mobility changes
This study searched for French urban mobility practices with the dilemma of planned versus lived spaces as part ofa wider research of gentrification and mobility in the developed and developing countries’ primary and secondary
cities. The contradictory interplay of residential, commercial and transport-led mobility was studied in Paristhrough direct observation and primary and secondary data collection in relation to the specific urban planning
practice of pedestrianization. The Paris study findings were compared from the perspective of municipally-led
and gentrification-induced mobility practices to the findings of earlier work on shopping street pedestrianization
and revitalization in Samsun, Turkey and Osaka, Japan. Moreover, the possible impacts of the ongoing pandemic
on this interplay of personal mobility, residential mobility and commercial mobility was recognized as a major
factor –a game changer– in the Paris study. The study reflected that depending on their way of implementationand nature, the mobility-based urban change policy and practices could cause differing outcomes, ranging fromthe more beneficial to the more controversial, such as involuntary moves of people and shops (displacement)
and more expensive, over-aestheticized cities of consumption (gentrification). The overall research underlined
the possibility that popular urban discourses, such as pedestrian-friendly city, eco-city, compact city or smart city
might create just the opposite ends.

Marion Lagadic (2021 FFJ/Michelin Foundation Fellow,
DPhil, University of Oxford, United Kingdom)
Marion Lagadic is a doctoral student on the DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development
at the University of Oxford. Her research explores the relations between cycling
practices and gender in Japanese cities. In Western Europe and North America,
sustainable mobility is far from gender-inclusive : the vast majority of urban cyclists
are men – 60% in Paris, 70% in London, 80% in New York (Pucher & Buehler, 2012;
STIF-OMNIL-DRIEA, 2010; TfL, 2015) – and the sociodemographic profiles of cyclists
do not seem to diversify as modal shares increase (Aldred et al., 2016). In Japan, thecontrary is true: the vast majority of urban cyclists are women, and cycling is culturally
associated with the image of the mother riding with her children on a mamacharibicycle. Marion Lagadic’s research tackles the gendering of cycling practices in Japan, and questions influential
Western results that tend to be discussed as universal in the academic literature: women would cycle lessbecause they would be more risk-averse, and because the weight of unequally shared domestic tasks would
make their mobility too complex to be cyclable. In Japan, women perform, on average, 29 hours of domestic
work per week, while men only spend 2 hours per week on these same tasks (Shirahase, 2014, p. 134).
Japanese women actually use the bicycle as a way to optimise their scarce time resources in the context ofcomplex mobilities.

Toshio Mizuuchi (Professor, Urban Research Plaza (URP)and School of Geography, Osaka City University, Japan)
Professor Mizuuchi is investigating how formerly homeless and needy people sustain
their lives by renting low-rent housing in this inner ring, focusing on the importance ofthe role of housing support NPOs and the local real estate agencies. Together with
community development activists, his research team for this project is investigating
the possible development of mutual communication between the Japanese communityand foreign entrepreneurs and settling residents in these areas.

Lijun Lu (Associate Professor, School of Human and Social
Sciences, Fukuoka Prefectural University, Japan)
Professor Lu's research focuses on the mechanisms of transnational entrepreneurshipand resettlement of foreign residents in Japan in the context of declining birth rates
and an ageing society. She focuses in particular on overseas Chinese, their social
capital, the formation and combination of urban spaces associated with theirentrepreneurship and resettlement, and their relationship with Japanese local
communities. Her current joint research focuses on their social capital, the formationand combination of urban space with entrepreneurship and settlement, and theresulting relationship with Japanese communities. She also investigates the urgent
issue of the changing circumstances surrounding the transnational entrepreneurshipof foreign residents in Japan due to the Corona disaster.

Zechuan Zhu (PhD candidate in Human Geography,
Osaka City University, Japan)
Zhu who is a PhD candidate in Human Geography at Osaka City University focuseson Naniwa and Nishinari wards in central Osaka, investigating this area’s gentrification
without displacement, changes in land use and tenant demographics. At the sametime, he is investigating under the supervision of Professor Mizuuchi and Professor
Lu why new immigrants (newcomers) chose to settle in the two aforementioned
districts and the impact of their settlement on the surrounding environment. In thisjoint research project, he is also investigating the deteriorating business of Airbnb incentral Osaka against the backdrop of a sharp decline in the number of foreign visitors
to Japan now that Corona is rampant.

Title: The revival of a declining shopping street in the old inner-ring area
through the vigorous action of Chinese immigrants; the case of Osaka
In Japan's old urban areas, shopping streets serving blue- and grey-collar customers in the inner and outerrings had thrived as arcaded street shopping districts and concentrations of local retail outlets until the 1970s.
In the inner ring, where the blue- and grey-collar populations are relatively large, the rapid population declineof the old town and the aging people increase since the 1990s have led to the increase of vacant shops andthe decrease of operating shops. Meanwhile, since the late 1990s, many Chinese workers and students have
moved to Japan. During the 2010s, the city of Osaka has shown a dramatic increase of tourists from East Asia,and continual influx of Chinese businessmen. So, even in the hollowed-out inner ring, in areas such as Nishinari
Ward, where transportation is convenient, vacation rental like Airbnb, hostels, hotels and restaurants haveopened, and vacant shops have been filled up rapidly. The number of Chinese-owned construction companies
engaged in home renovation has also increased. This joint research project that has been underway since theend of 2016 seeks to identify the reality of the rapidly growing Chinese population settling in Osaka City andthe impact of their residence on the city. Nishinari being a disadvantages area with many socially vulnerable
groups and a high level of local stigma, Japanese investment had been discouraged, but the Chinese
immigrants took advantage of this opportunity to acquire property in the area. The Chinese were not richenough to have a strategy for regenerating the area, and yet, a large number of unique karaoke pubs were set
up cheaply in the area, which began to be characterized by a high concentration of migrants from Fuqing inFujian Province. At the same time, the Chinese immigrants started to manage flats for Chinese and Vietnamese
people, welfare recipients and Airbnb extensively. At one stage, they joined with the consulate in a plan to build
a Chinese quarter, but this was abandoned due to the change of an enthusiastic consul, discontent of Japaneseneighbourhood and the subsequent Corona disaster. With the help of various loans and benefits from theJapanese government, karaoke pubs have been able to continue to operate, but Airbnb has been closed down
across the board, and some have either made do with the money they had earned or have gone out ofbusiness. However, there are some buyers from Hong Kong who have decided that now is a good time to buy
such vacant properties, but the future is uncertain. Although there is a segment of the Japanese communitythat is not happy with the arrival of the Chinese immigrants in the area, there has not been a gentrification thathas forced the poor out, and most of the shops have been renovations of wooden structures. In this sense, it
is a sustainable, inclusive and restorative urban regeneration that continues to accommodate the poor,
including the immigrants. The Chinese who have moved into the city resemble the other socially vulnerable
populations of Osaka. On the other hand, in Osaka City, the increase in the number of well-educated, highincome Chinese immigrants can be seen in the form of owning rather expensive wooden detached houses,
and although we will not discuss this in this article, there is also a stratification of the Chinese population.

Federico Cugurullo (Assistant Professor, Trinity College
Dublin)Federico Cugurullo is assistant professor in smart and sustainable urbanism at Trinity
College Dublin. His research is positioned at the intersection of urban geography,
political philosophy and experimental urbanism, and explores how artificial intelligenceis influencing urban governance.

Title: Cars and marionettes: questioning people’s
acceptance of artificial intelligence in spite of fear, witha focus on autonomous vehicles
Autonomous cars represent a new class of vehicles driven by artificial intelligence (AI). They are increasingly
being integrated into the transport portfolio of cities, with potentially strong repercussions for the design andsustainability of the built environment. This paper sheds light on the urban transition to autonomous transport,
by focusing on how people are reacting to autonomous cars. We draw upon an in-depth survey conducted in
Dublin (1,233 respondents), to provide empirical evidence of what is, at first glance, a paradoxical behaviouralsituation. On the one hand, people appear to be generally afraid of cars driven by a non-biological intelligence.
They fear collisions, glitches and hacking incidents. On the other hand, however, a substantial amount of
individuals are ready to adopt autonomous cars as soon as possible as their primary means of urban transport.
We interpret this empirical contradiction, by drawing upon behavioural studies in order to illuminate the manyfactors that are shaping people’s attitude towards autonomous cars and, more in general, AI. Theoretically, we
seek to contribute to broader debates about psychopolitics and free will in the life of cities, questioning human
freedom in a society whose collective psyche is constantly nudged by the neoliberal state.

Alp Arısoy (Co-founder, Urban.koop)
After graduating from MSGSU architecture department, he had his master degree inurban landscape in Politecnico di Milano and his Phd in Istanbul Technical University(ITU). He has been the coordinator of Urban Studies Department of CEKUL Foundation
since 2010 and has been conducting urban scale conservation, revitalization andstrategic planning projects in Anatolian cities. His research and publications arefocused on the cultural policies, urban life and social structure of the city. He is alecturer at Ayvansaray University and a co-founder of Urban.koop / Urban Studies
Cooperative.

Title: Urban design as a tool for building bridging ties
The research presented aims to analyze the social ties and neighborly interactions of a small creative
community in one of the gentrifying inner-city districts of Istanbul. Based on social network mapping and face
to face interviews, interclass heterophilous relations and bridging ties between social groups has been put
under scope. Interactions between social groups can be considered as a major factor for understanding
gentrification and its effect on communities. A better understanding of how and where more fluid mid-income
classes interact with their surrounding local environment in neighborhoods is important, as it is a basic factor
determining the local nature of the gentrification. This research demonstrates that besides social factors, therepeated cursory encounters in public space also plays a major role in building bridging ties between socialgroups, therefore has a direct effect on the nature of gentrification. In what ways can urban space foster
unpretentious encounters? The study aims to contribute to gentrification debate by re-thinking mobility
strategies, urban land use and a new understanding of public space.

Lidia Katia C. Manzo (EU Marie Sklodowska Curie Research
Fellow, ​Contract Professor of Sociology, Department ofSocial and Political Sciences (SPS), Università degli Studi
di Milano)
Lidia K.C. Manzo has been recently awarded with the Marie Sklodowska Curie
European Individual Fellowship 2020-2023 to develop the project CITY-OF-CARE
at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the Milan University. She isinterested in the application of ethnography and participatory methods in critical urban
cultural studies to reinforce our knowledge of how discrimination, segregation andhegemony work spatially.

Title: From pedestrianization to gentrification: micromobility, communitybased entrepreneurs and the re-branding of Milan’s Chinatown
Cities have been making efforts over the years to become more pedestrian friendly with a lot of these plans
accelerating as a consequence of the pandemic. Roads have been closed and pedestrian areas expanded
to ensure more space is available to adhere by social distancing guidelines. This study examines the role ofpedestrianization and entrepreneurs as mediators of cultural meaning in the upscale commercial developmentof Milan’s Chinatown. Entrepreneurs have become ideological advocates that guide the shaping of culturalrituals, economic activities, and local social norms. What is the significance of diverse neighbourhoods as
emerging entrepreneurial spaces? Are we talking about neighbourhood entrepreneurs providing services andentertainment to create local urban culture, or are we talking about political/economic forces in the commodificationof ethnic and cultural diversity? Starting from these questions, this paper discusses the relationship between
micromobility, community-based entrepreneurs, civic economy, understandings of business networks, andpatterns of socio-spatial change on the main commercial boulevard in Milan’s Chinatown. This boulevard isfurther described as the core of financial speculation and gentrification in the area. This study draws upon
several years of field research conducted between 2007 and 2015. Quantitative empirical data, ethnographic
data on the contemporary – and historical – aesthetic and commercial characteristics and value-creating
practices are considered.

Paola Piscitelli (Post-doc Fellow, Hamburg Universität)
Paola Piscitelli, a DAAD P.R.I.M.E. post-doc fellow at the Hamburg Universität, theUniversity of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and the University Federico II in Naples,
is a researcher in urban studies, a traveller, and a documentary film-maker. She has
experience in urban themes concerning migration, mobility, and informality in (andacross) the urban space, developed through work experiences in Europe, Northernand Southern Africa, and some stops in the Americas and South-East Asia. Her work
combines specialist research and narrative languages, with a particular interest in
documentary filmmaking as a method. She is currently involved in action research on
the life and imaginaries of migrant youth in rapidly changing urban contexts throughaudio-visual participatory methodologies. Among her publications, there are “Atlantedelle città. Nove (ri)tratti urbani per un viaggio planetario” (Feltrinelli 2020), and “Mobile Urbanity. Translocal
traders and the city in Southern Africa” (Planum Publisher, 2018, free download here: http://www.planum.
net/mobile-urbanity-translocal-traders-and-city-in-southern-africa). Her latest short documentary film, "Radio
Riders” (2020), unveiling the infernal gear of delivery system in Milan by tuning in directly with the voices of its
precariously mobile carriers, was awarded at the Torino Jobs Film Day 2020.

Title: Thinking of mobile urbanity in time of forced immobility
What do informal cross-border traders between Johannesburg and Maputo and food deliveries in Milan havein common? The paradox of talking about mobility in a time of forced immobility urges us to unravel theunequal ‘intertwinements’ between forced and free mobile practices, across and beyond the fault lines aroundwhich comparative approaches are conventionally structured in urban studies. Taking on Nick Dines' urge tocompare across the Global “North” and “South” and applying it to the field of mobility studies, the contribution
will collate unexpected similarities between two previous, apparently distant works: a doctoral research “on themove” along mukheristas’s routes in Southern African and a documentary short film on the delivery “riders” inNorthern Italy, to reflect on what kind of urbanity is shaped in a not equally fluid world that continues to flow
thanks to people working more-as-infrastructures than as humans.

Alexandre Faure (Post-doc, FFJ-EHESS)
Alexandre Faure is a post-doctoral student at the Fondation France-Japon de l'EHESS(FFJ) and as such coordinates its theme 4. He also acts as secretary to the editorialcommittee of the FFJ publications. Alexandre Faure joined EHESS to study the
relationship between political time and urban planning time in various fields (renovationof the Halles de Chambéry, Urban Renovation Plan of La Noue in Bagnolet) andcompleted his doctoral thesis at the Centre de Recherches Historiques (CRH) under
the supervision of Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier. Also focused on political and urbantime, his thesis aims to explain Parisian metropolisation through a multidisciplinary
approach, mixing discourse, studies of urban planning documents and the geopolitics
of the actors.

Geerhardt Kornatowski (Associate Professor, Kyushu
University)
Geerhardt Kornatowski is associate professor (Graduate School of Social and Cultural
Studies) at Kyushu University. His research focuses on the spatial manifestationof inequality and voluntary sector geographies in East-Asian city-regions. Morespecifically, he is interested in the spatial politics and everyday micro-practices of
inner-city service hubs for vulnerable populations amidst various processes of urban
restructuring.

Title: Residential mobility and politics of pragmatism
amidst extreme inequality: The case of the Community Housing
Movement in Hong Kong
For several years now, Hong Kong has been topping the international chart of unaffordable housing. Relating
to the rental housing market, this has resulted in a downward mobility of living space for middle class household
and arrested mobility in substandard apartments for lower income classes. Grassroot demands on rent control

in the private housing market and additional supply in the public housing market have had little to no success.
In order to break the impasse of an overheated housing market and the systematic undersupply of public
housing, the NGO sector initiated a social housing project—the Community Housing Movement (CHM)—in2018. This presentation will explore the CHM project as a depoliticized effort to combat arrested mobility in the
housing market. It will argue that although important improvements in residential mobility needs of vulnerable
households have been realized, the project also sustains the hegemony of a high-profit developer industry.
The conspicuous role of ‘co-housing’ in this project will also be addressed.

Johannes
KienerUniversity)(Associate

Professor,

Saitama

Johannes Kiener is an urban geographer that focuses in his studies on housing issuesof the inner-city. By drawing on the example of Osaka his research covers especiallythe time after the economic fortune of Japan had turned at the beginning of the 1990s.
This period is marked by an increase of homeless people, vacancies, foreign residents,and more generally, a downturn of the local economy. Out of this particular innercity context, he studied the impact of guest houses for foreign residents on the local
community and economy and responses of the real estate market to adjustments thatwere made to the scope of public assistance, interpreting them as a resilient strategy
that preserves the inner-city housing stock for socially disadvantaged populations.
Through a survey about voluntary organizations in the former day laborer district Kamagasaki, he developed
this agenda further, by showing their continuing ability to cater to socially disadvantaged populations despite
the threat of gentrification and welfare reforms. Recently, he started also comparative research on homelesssupport geographies in contrasting urban welfare regimes, namely Osaka and Vienna.

Title: Residential mobility of welfare recipients in an environment of
universal welfare rights : on the example of public assistance recipientsin Nishinari Ward, Osaka City, Japan
This presentation interrogates the relation between residential mobility and welfare in an environment where
welfare rights are universal. It draws on the case of public assistance in Japan, which is a strong institution thatrealizes the constitutional right “to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living”. However,in the past this right was abolished in cases of male applicants that lacked a permanent residence or wereconsidered able to work. During the 2000s a series of adjustments to the scope of public assistance formallyeliminated these barriers, triggering especially in former day laborer areas—under which Nishinari Ward in
Osaka City is the home of the largest one—a sudden increase of public assistance recipients. By analyzing the
housing carriers of ten people that live in Nishinari Ward and receive public assistance this presentation
explores different relations between residential mobility and welfare provision. It critically sheds light on the
discourse of so-called “welfare magnets”, by providing explanations beyond the unequal distribution of welfare
rights that lead to the concentration of welfare recipients. Further, it aims also to contribute to the ongoingdebate about the role of “service hubs” in processes of gentrification, by shedding light on the value of informal
practices that enable welfare.

Melis Oğuz (Assistant Professor, Beykent University)
Assist. Prof. Dr. Melis Oğuz having graduated from Sankt Georg Austrian College in
2001, Oğuz pursued her undergraduate studies at Middle East Technical University(METU), respectively in City and Regional Planning (2005) and Sociology (2006).
Oğuz took her graduate degree from the Department of Social Policy at London
School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with her thesis titled “Re-generating
Gypsy Neighborhoods”. She completed her Ph.D. on the public space use andurban mobility of migrant women within the framework of a double doctorate protocol
signed between Berlin Technical University and Istanbul Technical University in2016. Currently, Oğuz is employed as a full-time academic staff at the Department ofIndustrial Design, Beykent University, Istanbul. She is coordinating and broadcasting
the weekly discussion program on urban studies and research, Mekan ve İnsan, at the online platform,
Medyascope. She is continuing to pursue another undergraduate study at Istanbul University, Faculty of Openand Distance Education, Exercise and Sports Sciences Programme. Urban sociology being her major field ofstudy, her recent works mainly focus on informality, urban transformation, paratransit systems, gender studies,public space, and green settlements.

Title: Minibuses of Istanbul / Istanbul of minibuses: reading patterns of
informality through mobility
The aim of this study is to comprehend the features of the informal public transportation system in Istanbul,
which has a great share in intra-urban transportation. It is important how such an informal system becomespart of the formal transportation network and why it is demanded highly by urban residents despite all of its
un-reliabilities. The informal system sometimes fills the gaps that are left by the formal system. It even becomesa part of the formal system, in circumstances when the formal cannot keep up with the emerging demands and/or is not prepared for the changes in the social and urban structures. As informality provides a solution for thelacking services, it may be tolerated for the short term or overlooked broadly. In Istanbul, the urban population
grew dramatically to keep up with the global competition pulling foreign direct investments. Yet, the city was
not ready to cope with the demands of the new urban population and to provide even basic services such as
proper shelter and infrastructure. The unqualified workforce that migrated from rural areas to Istanbul started
to build their own shelters, in empty areas on the peripheries around industrial areas and close to maintransportations routes. As with all the other basic services and infrastructure, means for commuting between
work stations and the informal housing settlements were not provided by the local government. So, the newurban population settled in these informal settlements started to innovate ways to fill the gap of lacking services.
The solution to the lack of formal public transportation was the provision of minibusses in Istanbul primarily
carrying people between work locations and homes in the informal areas. As the city continued spreading andsprawling, the local governments were even less capable to create solutions for the service needs of theinformal settlers, yet, they even overtook and institutionalized these transportation mediums and integrated
them with the formal public transportation system. However, being informal by nature, these public transportationmeans continue creating disorder and irregularity as well as malfunctioning and unexpectedness.

Magda Bolzoni (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Universityof Turin, Italy)
Magda Bolzoni is a post-doc research fellow at the Department of Cultures, Politics
and Society of the University of Turin. She holds a PhD in Sociology and her researchinterests focus on the issues of urban change and gentrification, migrations, sociospatial stratification and inequalities. She has spent periods of study and researchin South Africa, the Netherlands and Japan, where she was JSPS Fellow in 2017.
She is also researcher at FIERI (International and European Research Forum on
Immigration) and adjunct lecturer in Sociology at the Politecnico di Torino.

Title: Up and around: transnational elites, far commuting
and migrations in the pandemic Alps
Adopting a mobility frame, the presentation will discuss an on-going research investigating possible processesof (green/alpine) gentrification in the (pandemic) Alps. The research is concerned with transformations in
consumption and lifestyle preferences, housing and real estate markets broadly connected to the surge ofplatform capitalism, Covid pandemic and climate change. Indeed, the project questions the role of theseprocesses in, possibly, redefining the relationship among traditionally urban and non-urban localities and, moregenerally, between spaces of production, leisure and consumption within the frame of planetary urbanization.
Also, different dynamics of socio-spatial stratification may be at work in these contexts, which specificcharacteristics seem relevant to investigate. Mobility and temporality appear here crucial dimensions for the
analysis, as they contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the renewed appreciation of the mountains,
including not only processes of migration, but also of far commuting and multi-local dwelling. In other words,
these dimensions allow for a more precise investigation of processes that actually reveal an urban attitudein provenance and character rather than a new interest towards mountain/rural life. Developed within the
PRIN STCity, the research adopts a case study approach and it is currently focusing on real estate actors
and housing dynamics in prime location in the Italian, French and Swiss Alps with qualitative semi-structured
interviews to real estate agents, public and private stakeholders.