Special Issue: “Rethinking neighborness”

Guest editor: Olga Brednikova, Center for Independent Social Research

In the changing world, neighbor relations acquire new meanings, functions, forms, and spectrums. Mobility, automation, and technology that makes people interaction more indirect, influence the way the rules of neighborness are shaped. In the current issue dedicated to this topic, we look at diverse forms and formats of neighborness in contemporary cities. We are interested to determine how the practices and the culture of neighboring are changing over the course of time; how neighbor relations are transforming and how sustainable the forms of neighbor interactions are in the framework of changing structural conditions and contexts. The main objective of the issue is to bring the study of neghborness to new limits – beyond familiar approaches of urban sociology, concepts of solidarity and communication, all of which consider it a sustainable community, connected by a network of relationships. Instead, we would like to offer new methodological, thematical, and disciplinary perspectives towards analyzing neighborness.