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Методология изучения городских конфликтов: уровни масштабирования
The paper focuses on the methodology of multilevel analysis of urban conflicts. The proposed approach is an alternative to the macro view of urban change through the lens of neo liberal theories that dominates the field of urban studies. Based on the method ology of strategic interactionism, we posit that mobilization for the transformation of the urban environment is primarily related to participants’ perspectives and goals, as well as their interactions with each other in “arenas” (physically and institutionally limited locations) that are embedded within temporal frames (“events”) that highlight sets of interactions from the mundane routine actions. Arenas and events provide a conceptual framework for exploring the microfoundations of urban conflict. The advantage of microfoundations is that they are directly observable and can be documented in a variety of ways availa ble to the researcher. But we also posit that perspectives, goals, and interac tions are embedded in broader spatial and temporal structures — "fields" and "episodes" of conflicts. Conflict interac tions themselves are unique in terms of specific arenas and events, but more broadly they add up to regularities that can be described analytically, opening up opportunities for comparison and gener alization. Our methodology thus makes it possible to link directly observable mi crofoundations with an analytically char acterized mesolevel: despite the fact that “fields” and “episodes” are the result of analytical abstraction and do not exist “physically”, their identification helps to better understand the strategic nature of the interactions and associate a set of goals and actions in a sequence with an identifiable outcome. It also helps to link the “intermediate outcomes'' of interac tions in certain arenas to the outcome of the conflict. Simultaneous attention to the micro and mesolevels of urban conflicts makes it possible to identify their structural (imbalance of resources, sociopolitical and economic hierarchies) and agentbased (goalsetting, strate gic dilemmas, innovations, emotions) foundations. Using examples from our own research, we demonstrate how the presented conceptual apparatus can be translated into the specific instruments, methods, and analytical procedures.