Complex Urban Conflict: Conceptual Foundations and Modern Practices

In this article, based on the theories of L. Theveno and L. Boltansky, N. Fligstein and D. McAdam, we try to find theoretical, methodological and empirical grounds for identifying and analyzing the phenomenon known as a complex urban conflict. Theoretical analysis allows us to identify its hypothetical features: the multiplicity of elements, connectivity with other conflicts and their components, stability of flow and structural mobility (ability to transform), as well as to take steps to substantiate them, empirically based on the analysis of the Geoinformation database of conflicts of the Novosibirsk agglomeration and more than sixty semi-structured interviews with their participants. Conflicts approximately corresponding to the selected features were selected from the database, and analyzed according to a number of parameters. The analysis showed that urban conflicts are becoming a more stable and closely related to the urban context space of interactions of an increasing number of interconnected actors moving simultaneously in different strategic fields and in different logical justifications of justice. Complex conflicts correspond to at least three of the highlighted parameters: they are a reaction of a significant resource; they manifest themselves in the ability of actors to create an information resonance, to make connections and find new allies by constructing new meanings and additional agendas; they involve actors who already have experience of repeated participation in urban conflicts.