Saskia Sassen
Dutch-American sociologist who analyzed globalization, migration, and the making of global cities.
Most quoted
"The global city is a strategic site for the operations of global capital, but also for the formation of new types of social inequalities and new forms of political agency."
— from The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 1991
"Globalization is not just about the global; it is also about the national and the local, and the specific ways in which these scales are reconfigured."
— from The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 1991
"The global city is not simply a place where global processes are concentrated; it is also a place where these processes are produced and reproduced."
— from The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, 1991
All quotes by Saskia Sassen (102)
In letters to colleagues, I often reflect that sociology must engage the messiness of lived experience.
Cities are laboratories for democracy and its failures.
The global elite floats above national laws, while the poor are pinned down by them.
Personal reflection: Life's meaning emerges from the intersections of power and resistance.
Witty remark: Globalization? More like global irritation for the displaced.
Key passage: The denationalization of national territory is underway, quietly transforming sovereignty.
In correspondence, I wrote: Urban sociology reveals the hidden scripts of exclusion.
From an interview: We must rethink citizenship beyond the nation-state.
Observation: The informal sector is the unsung engine of urban resilience.
Aphorism: Borders are not lines on maps; they are sieves for power.
Speech excerpt: In the age of expulsion, solidarity becomes our sharpest tool.
Personal note: Meaning in life is found in the struggle against systemic erasure.
Comeback in debate: Your vision of seamless globalization ignores the human debris it leaves behind.
Key from 'The Global City': Command functions concentrate in a few nodes, amplifying disparities.
Interview quote: Digital divides are the new fault lines of inequality.
Reflection: Sociology teaches us that power is embedded in everyday spaces.
Joke: Why do global cities love immigrants? They do the work no one else wants—literally.
From letters: The personal is geopolitical in the lives of migrants.
Observation on field: Urban studies must center the voices of the marginalized.
Aphorism: Expulsion is the dark twin of accumulation.
Contemporaries of Saskia Sassen
Other Sociologys born within 50 years of Saskia Sassen (1947).