Decentring Montreal Through Urban Analysis
27–28 October 2027
Université de Montréal,
Campus MIL
Montréal | urban studies | governance | environment | materiality | culture | representations | comparison
Abstracts due by November 20, 2026
We invite paper proposals for a conference dedicated to rethinking the study of Montreal through comparative, interdisciplinary, and diachronic perspectives.
Montreal occupies a distinctive place in contemporary urban imaginaries. A francophone and bilingual metropolis in North America; an island city that has often turned away from its waterways; a settler city of colonial heritage; a site of administrative dysfunction, corruption, and political scandal; a laboratory for urban policy; and a major centre of cultural production, Montreal is frequently described as exceptional. This perceived singularity, echoed in media, political discourse, scholarship, and cultural representations, has profoundly shaped the ways the city has been studied, understood, and represented.
Yet Montreal is also shaped by historical processes shared by cities across the Global North and beyond. Its development has been marked by colonization, gender norms, industrialization and deindustrialization, migration and race, municipal reform, suburbanization, globalization, gentrification, urban capitalism, sexual boundaries, and environmental change. In this sense, Montreal is both a distinctive case and a particularly rich vantage point from which to examine broader urban phenomena.
This conference seeks to contrast two distinct approaches to the study of Montreal. The first, Montrealogy, emphasizes the city's particularities, at times treating Montreal as an autonomous object of inquiry detached from broader analytical frameworks. It draws inspiration from Marseillology, which identified a similar phenomenon in relation to the Mediterranean city of Marseille [1]. This first approach also builds on a special issue of Anthropologica devoted to Montrealology, which highlighted Montreal's distinctive character through case studies focusing, among other themes, on language and religion [2]. The second approach, which we propose to call Montrealism, offers a more decentred, situated, and comparative perspective of Montreal. Without denying the city's historical and geographical particularities, Montrealism seeks to reposition Montreal within the broader history and geography of cities, metropolitan regions, and urban societies. By placing these two approaches into dialogue, this conference asks: What can we learn about cities through Montreal, and what does Montreal reveal about contemporary urban transformation on a larger scale?
Our goal is to bring together scholars, students, practitioners, artists, activists, and community members to collectively reflect on the many ways Montreal is constructed, governed, transformed, and narrated across time and space. Drawing on a range of case studies, contributions should situate Montreal in relation to global urban trends while remaining attentive to the distinction between the uniqueness and the ordinariness of Quebec's metropolis. We especially welcome comparative work that sheds light on Montreal's particularities through engagement with other urban experiences.
Through this conference, we hope to foster dialogue across disciplines to better understand what makes Montreal distinctive while situating the city within broader historical and contemporary processes. More broadly, we seek to explore what the study of Montreal can contribute to debates in urban history, geography, and theory, and what those debates, in turn, can reveal about Montreal. The conference aims to bring into conversation analytical and methodological approaches that often develop in parallel, creating space for a plural, comparative, critical, and situated Montrealist approach to urban scholarship.
We welcome contributions from urban history, geography, sociology, economics, political science, planning, anthropology, environmental studies, cultural studies, Indigenous studies, and related fields.
[1] See for instance the conference Marseille, ville ordinaire ? Réalités urbaines et récits contre-hégémoniques held in May 2026 at the Musée d'histoire de la Ville de Marseille. See also: Maisetti, Nicolas, and Cesare Mattina, eds. Maudire la ville : Socio-histoire comparée des dénonciations de la corruption urbaine. Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2021.
[2] See the 2013 thematic issue of Anthropologica on Montréalology, notably Martha Radice's introduction and Pierre Filion's conclusion.
1. Governance and the Political Economy of the City
This theme explores contemporary forms of governance in Montreal and the power relations that shape urban change from comparative and decentred perspectives. Possible topics include the roles of public institutions, private actors, and community organizations; metropolitan governance; urban policy; housing and mobility; urban inequalities; and the political and economic forces that shape the city's development.
2. Urban Production, Materiality, and Environment
This theme focuses on the processes through which the city is produced, maintained, and transformed, as well as on its material and environmental dimensions. We welcome contributions on the built environment, infrastructure, urban landscapes, planning design, transit networks, neighbourhood change, ecological transitions, and the relationships between urban societies and their environments. Particular attention will be given to the practices, temporalities, material conditions, and actors involved in the production of urban space.
3. Culture, Identity, and Representations
Urban life in Montreal is experienced through language, everyday practices, and cultural representations. This theme examines how language, lived experience, and urban imaginaries shape the city. Contributions may address language politics, Indigenous and migrant experiences, and the fluid, intersectional, and contested identities that characterize the city. We also welcome analyses of how literature, film, media, and artistic practices produce and circulate images of Montreal that may be described as either Montrealogic or Montrealist.
Interested participants are invited to submit a 300-word abstract and a 150-word biography by November 20, 2026, to the following emails: mcaron@athabascau.ca and clarence.hatton-proulx@umontreal.ca.
This conference's working languages are English and French.
This conference will be held in person only. Remote presentations will not be accepted.
Subject to available funding, limited financial support may be provided to help cover travel and accommodation expenses, with priority given to students.
We are currently exploring several formats and avenues for disseminating and showcasing the papers and discussions emerging from this conference. Further details will be announced in due course.
Organizing committee
Matthieu Caron, Athabasca University
Clarence Hatton-Proulx, Université de Montréal
Scientific committee
Gérard Beaudet (UdeM)
Harold Bérubé (USherbrooke)
Sandra Breux (INRS)
Guillaume Éthier (UQAM)
Annick Germain (INRS)
Magda Fahrni (UQAM)
Steven High (Concordia)
Violaine Jolivet (EHESS)
Nicolas Kenny (SFU)
Nathan McClintock (INRS)
Frédéric Mercure Jolette (USherbrooke)
Sean Mills (UofT)
Chloé Reiser (ENS Lyon)
Amanda Ricci (York)
Leslie Touré Kapo (INRS)
Ipek Türeli (McGill)
Olivier Vallerand (UdeM)
Sophie L. Van Neste (INRS)