Research Fellow at the City Institute, Dr. Frederick Peters returned this February, 2019, from teaching the capstone class in Urban Sustainable Development Policy in the Masters Program “Altervilles,” hosted by the prestigious Sciences Po, Lyon and the Université Jean Monnet held in Saint Étienne, France. As Visiting Professor, Dr. Peters led this year’s Altervilles cohort through the frameworks of Urban Political Ecology, International Political Economy and Marxian Geography over an intensive 2 weeks to explore critical perspectives on each of the titular terms of the course.
Home of the Master Altervilles program, St. Étienne, France
With Urban Studies at Malmö University Lecturer Fredrik Björk video-conferencing in to provide background lectures in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, contemporary city- and community-building projects and interventions, and as a counterpoint to the anglophone scholarly tradition, the class was a unique chance to workshop critical scholarship in the English language, how it built off of such French language luminaries such as Lefebvre and Latour, and how it is taken up and received by a cohort of Master’s students, right now in the France of Macron and the gilets jaunes movement.
With an international group of students whose backgrounds include Urban Planning, Urban Studies, Geography, Political Science and Sociology, this was a great chance to explore social equity and environmental justice in contemporary urban development projects across the world.
View from the train station of St Etienne