Applying the Urban Scene as Community Practice Approach in the Field

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter is based on extensive fieldwork carried out in three Polish cities and serves as an exemplification of the application of the approach proposed in Chapter 2 to the study of community phenomena in contemporary cities. Although based on Polish data, the research develops the universal concept of socio-cultural opportunity structures and thus allows to explain communal processes beyond national contexts. The chapter starts with a discussion on challenges in investigating social practices and provides the details of the applied methodology. Then, selected case studies of different scenes as community practices are presented and discussed in order to illustrate how urban space and cultural consumption practices interact, leading to the development of different kinds of communities, or rather community practices. From bohemian and alternative lifestyle communities, through ecologists and urban activists to local communities, the role of scene in community practices is presented and analysed.