Black Socialities: Urban Resistance and the Struggle Beyond Recognition in Paris
By (Author) Vanessa Eileen Thompson
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
24th June 2026
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Political activism / Political engagement
Social and cultural anthropology
Hardback
240
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
From author:
This is a cutting-edge exploration of black urban politics in Parisian racialized working class and working poor districts, the formation of abolition geography, and the possibilities of new forms of political blackness.
In Black Socialities. Urban resistance and the struggle beyond recognition in Paris, Vanessa E. Thompson argues that black urban politics in the French banlieues are multi-racial and spatially grounded towards abolition. Based on a close engagement with urban black activist practices against racial imagery in the city, policing and state racism, and housing insecurity, she shows how radical anti-racism goes beyond struggles for recognition and unfolds alongside new formations of political blackness that is based on urban conviviality.
This form of black politics has much to teach us in this current conjuncture of liberal anti-racism and state recognition politics.
Vanessa E. Thompson is Assistant Professor and Distinguished Professor of Black Studies and Social Justice at Queen's University, Canada.