Relational Approach in Urban Studies

Abstract

The article is devoted to the relational sociology as a research perspective which enables to overcome the dualism between structural and humanistic approaches in sociology. Regarding urban studies relational approach allows describing the dynamic of urban processes shifting attention away from the substantial components. Urban space is seen as socially constructed through the processes of interaction between different loci of social life (individuals, institutions, neighborhoods, etc.). The author highlights and systematizes the main directions of the relational understanding of the city: “mobile urbanism” (J. Urry), “theory of emergent urban assemblages” (B. Latour, C. McFarlane, I. Farias) and “relational realism” (M. Emirbayer, H. White, A. Mische, C. Tilly, T. Blokland). The “relational realism” perspective is discussed in more detail. According to this approach, an analysis of the changing cultural components of the urban social space helps to uncover mechanisms and cultural base of urban transformation processes. In particular, the author refers to the relational mechanisms of urban inequalities construction. The case-study of the public housing project in USA conducted by the Danish sociologist T. Blokland provides a good example. T. Blockland demonstrates that the neighborhood stigmatization alters communication and becomes the element of interactional strategy of both “the marked” and “the marker”, facilitating further fixation of social and space inequality. Segregation is thus not simply a reflection of social inequality, but it has an impact on further aspects of its strengthening and reproduction through social relations. From this point of view, segregation, mental geographies, representations of different urban spaces, appear not just as a result of a relational process, but as relational concepts themselves. The author briefly illustrates this thesis by using results of her own case-study of Kanonersky island in St. Petersburg.