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Drawing on ethnographic observation conducted in a Montreal pawnshop, this paper explores the logics and perception of money and changing rhetoric of value deployed within pawn broking, an activity of value fixation. The complex experience and self-definition of their social role by pawnbrokers is explored. The history of pawn broking is briefly C'est bien de valeur, mais… Portrait d'un pawn shop montréalais [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic segregation, or residential inequalities based on income, is a complex spatial process. It is associated with structures which arise at certain scales and which evolve in time. In this paper, we analyse the evolution of economic segregation in Montréal from 1980 to 2000. This analysis is based on household's income and on their distribution within the residential space from four scales: households, census tracts, municipalities and some radio-concentric zones. Results confirm that the spatial organisation of economic segregation is scale dependent. More precisely, local inequalities are growing more rapidly but this trend does not prevent the consolidation of metropolitan-sized clusters. Moreover, results confirm that Montréal's economic segregation follows North American trends like the growth of economic disparities (spatial or not) or the fact that the enrichment of central and ex-urban neighbourhoods is compensated by the impoverishment of inner-ring suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do we mean by « projet urbain » and what is new with this concept? Projet urbain refers to a European concept of planning which is understood in dissimilar ways by different authors, and it seems interesting to synthetise different points of view to create its definition, showing certain dimensions of this concept as well as certain deviations thereof. This paper examines the redevelopment of the Old Port of Montreal within this projet urbain concept. We want to show how the federal government has led a projet urbain for the port; and how its open and progressive planning, as well as the public's participation, has allowed an intervention which respects the site. However, the lack of collaboration between the various levels of government did not favour the conception of the project with relation to the environment. Finally there is a lack of follow-up on the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of qualitative research on the ethical notion of responsibility in the context of young adults' lives. The author presents an analysis of in-depth interviews with young adults from the Montreal area about their definition of adulthood and individual responsibility. This research reveals the importance of responsibility—defined by the interviewees as concern for others—in the socialization process involved in the passage towards adulthood through professional, residential and family trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tins PAPER EXAMINES the causes for the slow development of trade unionist traditions among Montreal moulders. Founded in 1859, the Montreal moulders' union underwent two decades of relative stagnation, before experiencing an important expansion. During the same period, in other Canadian towns, the moulders rapidly formed strong unions. In Montreal, ethnic and linguistic differences between the British and French Canadian moulders, and the tensions they engendered during the period, seem to have been at the center of the problem. Only a minority of moulders, primarily those of Scottish, Irish, English, and American origin, were involved in the union from the outset. The non-unionized moulders, mainly French Canadians, apparently opted for a more spontaneous form of militancy. Often organizing on a temporary basis, their position was solidified by their functional autonomy in the workplace. But in the long run, through a lengthy process of adaptation, and under the threat of degradation of their craft, the moulders closed ranks around a permanent organization of regulation and defense of their trade. The union's rise was carried out under the impulse of the French-Canadian moulders, and secondary, the Irish-Canadian moulders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]