This chapter describes the analytical approach developed and applied empirically in this book, which we conceptualize as the “structural field of contention approach.” It focuses on collective actors (rather than individuals), such as social activist groups. Our concept of field should be understood as an analytical notion and heuristic device developed for the analysis of a social space constituted by actors representing different structural positions, such as social classes, in relation to each other. Relationships may take the form of alliances and solidarities, as well as conflicts and antagonisms, and actors can also work independently from each other.

Two main distinctions of our field concept from those of other field approaches is that we do not limit actors’ relationships to intentional ones, and we include their structural background as part of the field of relationships. This means that even where actors work in parallel, we can identify connections between their actions (e.g., through structural connections between the issues they address or through unintended consequences for each other’s working conditions). Our perspective calls for a historically informed analysis that takes both structural and contingent factors into account in shaping the field, as both types of factors affect—by enabling, constraining, and everything in between—the collective agency of actors. Importantly, in contrast to most field approaches to social mobilization, it also incorporates and seeks to explain silences and inaction, that is, a lack of mobilization and politicization on behalf of social groups whose structural positions constrain their collective agency or incline them to silence rather than protest. In this book, the analytical approach is used to capture contention around housing.

In the following section, we first discuss the benefits of employing relational and especially field approaches in the study of social mobilization, as well as their limitations. Thereafter, we draw on Crossley’s notion of social movements as “fields of contention,” pointing to the numerous groups that interact within the internal space of a “movement” and to the relationships, alliances, and conflicts between those various groups as they unfold over time, while embedding social movement struggles within multiple differentiated contexts of struggle (Crossley, 2006a, p. 552). Deriving inspiration from Crossley’s notion, we then elaborate our own analytical approach, which, more than Crossley’s, stresses the structural factors that constitute the conditions of group formation and struggle. Structural factors are conceived as elements of the field of contention that produce the tensions giving rise to contention. These tensions influence the conditions of contention, including relationship formation among actors, and are at times addressed and acted upon by movements.

Dynamics of Contention

That social mobilization is a complex matter, involving a large number of factors, is well known to researchers of social movements and contentious politics. Different theoretical traditions in social movement studies place different emphases on these factors. They are environmental/contextual factors (such as political opportunity structures and resource availability), cognitive factors (such as framing or collective identity), relational factors (such as network cultivation or brokerage), or emotional factors (such as collective anger or resentment). Whereas theoretical traditions were for some time rather polarized, recently there have been various attempts to integrate or synthesize perspectives (Campbell, 2005). One such attempt was the “dynamics of contention” approach to studying social contention and mobilization (McAdam et al., 2001). At a general level, we have derived inspiration from the “dynamics of contention” approach in developing our own structural field of contention approach.

One of the benefits of the dynamics of contention approach was this ambition to identify a variety of mechanisms to investigate the complexity of mobilization for contentious actions/politics. The authors set out to explore “several combinations of mechanisms and processes with the aim of discovering recurring causal sequences of contentious politics” (McAdam et al., 2001, p. 4). For the purpose of our research, we share their ambition to let the patterns of mobilization, actors, and trajectories of contention guide the analysis. As these authors put it:

  • “With respect to mobilization we must explain how people who at a given point in time are not making contentious claims start doing so—and, for that matter, how people who are making claims stop doing so.”

  • “With regard to actors we need to explain what sort of actors engage in contention, what identities they assume, and what forms of interaction they produce.”

  • “When it comes to trajectories, we face the problem of explaining the course and transformation of contention, including its impact on life outside the immediate interactions of contentious politics” (McAdam et al., 2001, p. 34).

Even if we do not follow the dynamics of contention approach strictly, capturing the mobilization of actors, or the lack thereof, and their relational dynamics as well as transformations in the field of contention (for instance, in terms of shifting alliances) is an important part of our approach that we develop further in the following chapters.

Perhaps one of the more lasting contributions of the dynamics of contention approach was the stress on the relational mechanisms involved in the mobilization of collective action, such as network cultivation, strategic leadership, or brokerage (e.g., McAdam et al., 2001; Tarrow, 2011; Tilly & Tarrow, 2007). In the past few decades, there has been a rise in relational approaches to social movements, which focus on interactions among divergent actors, their transactions, networks, and social ties (e.g., Diani et al., 2010; Diani & McAdam, 2003; Diani et al., 2018). Relational approaches consequently emphasize interactions between different kinds of collective actors (informal groups or formal organizations) and their relationship building, seeking to discern patterns of conflict and avoidance as well as cooperation (e.g., Johansson & Kalm, 2015). Relational perspectives on civil society and social movements include network (e.g., Diani & McAdam, 2003; Diani et al., 2010), coalition (e.g., Staggenborg, 1986; Van Dyke & McCammon, 2010; McCammon & Moon, 2015), and field models (e.g., Crossley, 2002a, 2003, 2006a, 2006b; Fligstein & McAdam, 2011, 2012a, 2012b; cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Our approach to contention draws on some insights from the coalition and field traditions but also differs from theirs in some important respects, as discussed below.Footnote 1

Coalition Models

One important aspect of the trajectories of contention, apart from showing growth or decline, is the patterns or lack of collaboration among collective actors engaged in a particular issue. Given differences in actors’ structural positions, a key issue is the extent to which they can collaborate across social divides. For instance, following Castells’s seminal work, it has been argued that urban problems such as environmental or transportation problems are particularly conducive to cross-class alliances, as they typically affect all classes, albeit to various degrees (Castells, 1983; Mayer, 2013). However, previous research has also highlighted difficulties in mobilizing and forming coalitions across class divides or among groups with different social backgrounds or interests (e.g., Lichterman, 1995; Rose, 1999; Florea, 2016). Differences in social positions of activists, ideological differences, and movement cultures as well as competition for resources have been identified as factors impeding coalition formation (Staggenborg, 1986; Lichterman, 1995; Beamish & Luebbers, 2009; Kanellopoulos et al., 2017). Even so, efforts toward “coalition work” (Staggenborg, 1986) or “bridgework” (Saunders et al., 2015), such as frame bridging, have been shown to enable cross-movement alliances despite constraints (Briata et al., 2020). Moreover, previous findings highlight that exceptional environmental/contextual conditions, such as economic crises, may cause organizations and groups to set aside ideological differences (e.g., Staggenborg, 1986; Borland, 2010; Goldstone, 2011; Lobera, 2019).

As mentioned above, Marcuse (2012) saw the financial crisis of 2008 as conducive to the creation of alliances between “the deprived” (such as those who are exploited, unemployed, impoverished, discriminated against in employment or education, or in poor health) and “the discontented” (those who are disrespected or treated unequally because of sexual, political, or religious orientation, or otherwise constrained in their capacity to explore the possibilities of life). However, as Mayer remarked, it should be noted, “though all of them are affected by contemporary forms of dispossession and alienation, they occupy very different strategic positions within the post-industrial neoliberal city” (Mayer, 2013, p. 11). For instance, in a study of Argentinian movements, Daniel Ozarow (2019) showed that the relationship between movements by the middle class and the poor has passed through various phases since the early 2000s. From a close coalition supporting a leftist political turn at the beginning of the decade, by 2015 the relationship was characterized by parallel and sometimes inimical relations, and support for the conservative Macri government by middle-class activists. However, as the middle classes did not benefit from Macri’s policies, Ozarow documents that by the end of the 2010s, they were again more open to alliances with the poor.

Alliances across heterogeneous groups, such lower middle-class right-wing groups, new leftist activists, the homeless, artists, or academics, feature in our case studies of housing activism in Budapest and Bucharest, as detailed in later chapters. However, as we will see, these case studies also reveal the challenges of forming multiclass alliances of housing activists ranging from middle-class radicals and artists to socially marginalized groups, justifying our emphasis on viewing actors’ relationships in the context of long-term structural processes, alongside more contingent factors.

While drawing on the valuable insights of studies of social movement coalitions, one concern we have with this literature is that many of these studies tend to be overly focused on intentional actions in researching relations between actors in movements—as aptly illustrated in the title of a book edited by Van Dyke and McCammon (2010), Strategic Alliances. Among the housing activist groups described later on, the relations between actors go beyond intentional alliances or conflicts. In addition to examples of parallel activism in the same structural conflict, we see actors with opposing political agendas supporting similar issues, conflicts arising from unintended consequences, relations between movement groups being governed by the gestures of high-level politics, as well as phases of politically silent structural processes that can burst into the political sphere at a later stage. We argue that there is a need for an analytical approach to conceptualize the variety of these relationships—allowing us to capture a wider spectrum of scenarios, such as the formation of cross-group solidarity, the failure of such attempts, or the parallel mobilization of radically different groups in the same social-structural context—as well as the broader impacts of economic or political processes on actors’ relationships. For this reason, we find field models useful, as they enable an integrated analysis of a varied social topology and patterns of alliance, conflicts as well as independence (cf. Martin, 2003), as they unfold over time. Research from a long-term perspective suggests that cross-class alliances can maintain divisions and fall apart over time (Ehrenreich & Ehrenreich, 2013; Ozarow, 2019), which is one reason why we propose a field approach wherein the field is more like “structure in process” (cf. Crossley, 2006a, p. 19) and is attentive to field transformations over time.

Field models have a long tradition in the social sciences (Martin, 2003) and they are represented in diverse theoretical traditionsFootnote 2 even if Bourdieu is the major source of inspiration for most contemporary theories. We position our approach in relation to two of the most sophisticated attempts to integrate social movement analysis with field theory: Fligstein and McAdam’s “strategic action field” and Crossley’s “field of contention.”

Fligstein and McAdam’s Strategic Action Field

In recent years , Fligstein and McAdam’s (2011, 2012a, 2012b) notion of a “strategic action field” (SAF) has been an influential attempt to combine social movement and field theories, deriving inspiration from both Bourdieu and neo-institutional theory. These authors define an SAF as a meso-level social order wherein actors are attuned to and interact with one another on the basis of shared, but not necessarily consensual, understandings about the field’s purposes, its relationships to others, and the rules governing legitimate action (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012a, p. 9). They view SAFs as “socially constructed arenas within which actors with varying resource endowments vie for advantage” (2012b, p. 3). In fact, they conceive of society as “a myriad of strategic action fields” (2012b, p. 297), and claim that their theory is applicable to all strategic collective action, whether in the fluid form of social movements or in more organized forms, such as enterprises or universities.

In the competition for strategic advantage in the field, “incumbents” must compete with “challengers” who are “jockeying for position” (2011, p. 5). In addition, the authors claim that many SAFs have formalized “governance units” that are “charged with overseeing compliance with field rules and, in general, facilitating the overall smooth functioning of the system” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011, p. 6). Moreover, the authors introduce the notion of “social skills,” referring to “a given actor’s capacity to motivate cooperation in other actors by providing those actors with common meanings and identities” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012b, p. 290; also Fligstein, 2001).

We share with the SAF approach an interest in collective action and collective actors (rather than individuals, as with Bourdieu), as well as the view that the goal of actors is recognition of their grievances (2012b, p. 297). We also share an interest in the role of the “broader field environment” or “context,” as well as the role of “exogeneous shocks” (2011, p. 2), as the authors frame it—for instance large-scale crises (for which they give the mortgage crisis as an example)—in shaping the field, as we frame it. However, we do not share the emphasis on strategic action on which this approach is premised. Fligstein and McAdam criticize rational action theories for the notion that actors pursue fixed interests, stressing instead that skilled actors require the capacity to identify with others and thus redefine their interests in the course of action, for instance to build coalitions with others (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012b, p. 292). Even so, their conceptual vocabulary is permeated by the idea of strategic action, by which collective actors constantly seek “control” (e.g., 2012b, pp. 291, 306).

Moreover, this analysis of strategic action seems to imply a high degree of reflexivity of actors. We learn that actors seek “fashioning a shared template” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012b, p. 294) or even “fashion agreement” (or “a stable consensus”), primarily with regard to membership issues, the defining goal of the field, and the rules of the field (2012b, pp. 295, 300). While this may apply to formal organizations such as universities or business associations, it is more difficult to conceive of such processes in a social movement context (which the authors could perhaps explain by stating that social movements represent challengers in “either unorganized or unstable fields”) (2012b, p. 307).

Moreover, in SAF theory, the social skills of actors explain their success. Structural factors are largely absent, even though the authors note in passing that “the differences in [actors’] behavior owe primarily to the very different structural positions in which these actors find themselves” (2012b, p. 306). By contrast, structural factors are key to our field approach to contention.

Another aspect that SAF has in common with other Bourdieu-inspired field approaches to collective action is the notion of shared rules of the game, which is problematic from our point of view. Most field theorists share the idea of the autonomy of fields in relation to other fields (see, e.g., Krause, 2018), seeing fields as “bounded arenas” (Berman, 2016). Such field autonomy is achieved by distinct field logics based on doxa as in Bourdieu’s theory, a shared sense of what is at stake, or simply by the shared rules of the game, as with the SAF approach. In an almost system-theoretical formulation, the authors speak of “the socially constructed, internally self-referential, negotiated arenas within which strategic action takes place” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012b, p. 292). Moreover, the notion of shared rules leads the authors to a preoccupation with stability, arguing, “The goal of action in strategic action fields is to create and maintain the stability of the field while simultaneously achieving the group’s goals” (2012b, p. 293). Challengers will attempt to create new rules and thereby a new order (2011, p. 18). By contrast, we share Martin’s view that field autonomy is an empirical question (2003, p. 23) and that “field theory is an analytic approach, not a static formal system” (Martin, 2003, p. 24). Otherwise, there is a clear risk of reifying the field.

Even so, the SAF approach has been found useful in the study of urban mobilization (e.g., Domaradzka, 2018, 2019; Domaradzka & Wijkström, 2016, 2019; Lang & Mullins, 2020). Both Domaradzka and Wijkström (2016) and Lang and Mullins (2020) were able to identify governance units in their case analyses. Even so, in a social movement context, the existence of a governance unit (able to define the rules of the game) seems to us to be somewhat rare. This is not to deny that some collective actors occupy a more central position in networks than others, nor the role played by individual or collective brokers in networks of collective actors. However, the vocabulary of governance units seems to us again to presuppose too much intentionality, reflexivity, and strategic coordination capacity to be useful for studying the multiplicity of field relations in the dynamics of housing contention, as in our cases.

In this book, we suggest that it is useful to approach housing mobilizations in terms of a field understood to be a social space of collective actors (or one of “self-organized contestation,” in Martin’s vocabulary, 2003, p. 30) who share a stake in matters of housing, while acting from different structural positions yet related to each other. We call this a field because actors’ frameworks and capacity to act are defined by relationships with each other and with the broader political and structural processes in which they act. However, our approach deliberately avoids strong assumptions about actors being united by common collective identities (as social movement network models tend to assume), interest-based strategic action (as in coalition or alliance models), or fields as structured spaces of positions, characterized by a distinct field logic and shared views of issues at stake (as in the field models). To develop such an approach, we find Crossley’s “field of contention” to be a good starting point.

Field Relations Beyond Strategic Action: Crossley’s Field of Contention

Before Fligstein and McAdam, Nick Crossley (2002a, 2002b, 2003, 2006a) developed a theoretical framework combining Bourdieu’s theory with social movement theory—not cited by Fligstein and McAdam, one may note. Crossley’s project stemmed from dissatisfaction with the rational actor theory that became dominant, especially in social movement scholarship in the US from the 1970s onward, a critical view that we share (as discussed above). He saw the need for an approach that maintained focus on strategic action but in a way that was more sensitive to the structure–agency problem (2002a, 2002b, p. 669). In his early formulation, Crossley argued that Bourdieu’s practice theory could be brought into productive dialogue with social movement studies (e.g., Crossley, 2003). He started by understanding field in the sense developed by Bourdieu: as sui generis social spaces, constituted by the objective relations between specific agents, organizations, and institutions, which are organized around the common participation of these “players” in a historically and culturally specific social “game” (Crossley, 2002b, p. 674; drawing on Bourdieu, 1993; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). According to Crossley, the actors may hold very different subjective definitions of this game, and—crucial from our perspective—“the overall structure and dynamics of the field are unintended and perhaps even invisible to its participants” (2002b, p. 674). Thus, the actors involved “may disagree radically at the level of subjective opinion, agreeing only to the fact that they are in disagreement and that there is something meaningful and worthy of disagreeing about” (ibid.).

Crossley considered it important in the analysis of fields not only to consider highly visible protest events but also the less visible activities and relationships in everyday life—along the lines of Melucci’s (1989) “submerged networks” and Taylor’s (1989) “abeyance structures,” we may add—thus stressing the continuity between temporally distant protest events. For instance, Crossley (2002b, p. 672) argued that looking beneath the visible “tip of the iceberg” of a high-profile anti-corporate protest in Seattle revealed “a wide variety of forms of socio-political practices and relationships and an emergent social structure.” He conceptualized this as a “protest field.” In his later publications, Crossley framed it as a field of contention, in line with the dynamics of contention approach.

In his early formulation, Crossley consequently seemed to follow Bourdieu’s vocabulary closely, with fields as sites of struggle structured by an unequal distribution of the forms of capital and shaped by the habitus of the agents, as well as the context and dynamism constituted by their shared participation in a common “game” or “market” (field) (2003, p. 44).Footnote 3 In his later publications, Crossley seems to have downplayed this influence by citing ideas such as Zald and McCarthy’s field concept as inspirations (Crossley, 2006b; cf. Zald & McCarthy, 1994).Footnote 4 In his study of the field of contention around psychiatry, Crossley defined it as “the dynamic, always-in-process social and cultural structure generated by way of the interactions and relationships both between SMOs and between SMOs and a range of further relevant players who are implicated in the problems or issues identified in social movement discourses” (2006b, p. 4). The field, he stressed, is itself a constantly changing process and the configurations within it could be understood as “structures in process” (2006b, p. 19). Crossley remarked that relationships in the field have to be “made” and can be “unmade” (ibid.), a view that is relevant for our later analysis of the making and unmaking of solidarity in the field of housing contention in the empirical chapters.

Adding Context to the Field: The Structural Field of Contention Approach

Similar to Crossley’s, the approach we propose in this book recognizes a need for a multidimensional model of mobilization that can encompass complexity and diversity in terms of structural positions, ideologies, and tactics in a multilayered field of contention that may be useful for empirical analyses.

Crossley proposed an understanding of social movements in terms of fields of contention, emphasizing two key aspects:

Firstly, departing from traditional models of movements, which tend to view them as unified ‘things,’ it draws our attention to the numerous groups and agents who interact within the internal space of a ‘movement’ and to the relations, alliances and conflicts between those various groups/agents as they unfold through time. Secondly, it draws our attention to the embedding of social movement struggles within multiple differentiated contexts of struggle, each of which affords different opportunities for struggle but each of which makes different demands upon activists if struggle is to prove effective. (Crossley, 2006a, p. 552)

More than one movement may be represented in any field of contention, Crossley stressed (2006b, p. 5). Crossley saw actors in a field of contention as forming relatively autonomous configurations. These are sometimes produced in the exchange of resources and sometimes in competition; sometimes they cooperate and sometimes they conflict. Crossley argued that the positions that groups take in relation to one another are “just one amongst a number of emergent products produced within the field,” as sustained interaction could eventually generate “norms, semiotic codes, language games, identity narratives and traditions” (2006a, p. 553).

We suggest that this approach has several advantages (compared with other field approaches, such as those discussed above). First, it recognizes emergent properties and field dynamics without making strong assumptions about common understandings of the rules of the game (or acceptance of a doxa) as the more closely Bourdieu-inspired approaches tend to do. Moreover, it is as much interested in the unintended and/or unreflected consequences of field dynamics as in the conscious actor strategies. However, to a greater extent than Crossley but largely consistent with his approach, we stress the structural factors that constitute the conditions of group formation and struggle, thus returning to the understanding of social movements as part of long-term structural processes. We differ from Crossley by conceiving of structural factors as part of the field of contention that produces both the conflicts around which contention arises and influences relationship formation among actors.

Importantly, we move away from a conception of the field as an autonomous structure with an inherent, coherent logic, instead conceiving it as a heuristic tool for revealing the complex relations between actors and their broader context in the politicization of structural tensions around a certain issue—in this case, housing. Our approach resembles what Chris Pickvance (2001) proposed when he described responses to dissatisfaction with housing through inaction, individual action, and collective action as a linked set of objects of analysis. Pickvance emphasized that social movement research that focuses only on the latter of these three, collective action, limits itself to seeing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the full scope of social conflicts over housing. He considered the social and institutional context, including structural inequality, to be a necessary part of studying social responses to housing dissatisfaction. While Pickvance did not use the notion of a field, his main points correspond to those we emphasize in terms of contention fields, which indeed is one of the benefits we see in our approach. Our comparative approach is helpful, as it gives hints about where to look for silences and instances of inaction, as some groups mobilize in one context and are silent in others.

In terms of social structure, our approach departs from social movement studies’ traditional focus on movements’ own dynamics and their immediate contextual factors. This focus was based on a founding insight in social movement studies, namely that structural pressure in itself does not result in movement politics; the latter needs to be formed through movement actors’ work with the symbolic, political, and material resources available in their context. How movements as collective agents constitute their politics came to be the primary question in social movement research, pushing the question of movements’ relationships with broader structural processes into the background for a period. However, faced with a global eruption of movements after 2008, social movement research has returned to the question of structural background. There has been revived interest in how movements relate to structural conditions, reflected in a wave of calls to “bring back” the issue of capitalism to social movement studies (e.g., Hetland & Goodwin, 2013; Della Porta, 2015). Faced with simultaneous movements that articulated tensions of a global crisis in various locally embedded ways while sharing repertoires and mutual references, researchers needed to ask how broader structural processes, local constellations, and movements’ crisis politics across different global locations were related. As Flesher Fominaya argued, “although the economic crisis and attendant increases in social-economic inequalities and hardship provide a crucial motivating factor for protests against austerity, they are insufficient to explain mobilization” (2017, p. 2), pointing to the highly different collective responses to austerity in Ireland and Spain.

While social movement scholars recently returned to a structural focus, for urban and housing movement scholars the role of structural transformation and conflicts has remained a key focus (the legacy from Castells, 1978, 1983), prolifically combined with an interest in new crisis-based transformations and social movements (Fields, 2017; Martinez, 2019; Soederberg, 2020). We offer a novel analytical approach by which to grasp multiple modes of politicizing housing and their interactions in a complex field of contention, as well as to place their dynamics closely within the broader context of structural and political trends. First, tracing connections between various forms of contention and the respective aspects of structural transformations that they address or to which they are structurally linked allows for a fine-grained qualitative understanding of relevant connections between movement actors and broader structural shifts. Here we note how broader dynamics of global economic transformations affect local conditions of movements (as, e.g., Silver & Karatasli, 2015 suggest) and the way local social hierarchies, institutions, and politics condition actors’ relations and forms of contention. Second, our tracing of the politicization of housing after 2008 in two cities includes moments of mobilization as well as low-visibility organization and political silences. Our framework can address the interdependencies of housing movement activity without losing sight of the embedding of housing contention in broader socio-historical relations or the politically silent tensions resulting from the same structural process.

Our approach does not claim that structural processes translate directly to values or ideological positions. It recognizes both structure and collective agency, complex historical constellations as well as the role of contingent factors and events in shaping actors’ problem thematization and alliances. It requires attention to both structural and contingent factors in shaping the field.

In considering how structural processes translate into social mobilization and movement formation as well as the relations of solidarity or antagonism within the movement field, we wish to preserve the heuristic value of social movement research tools for examining the constitutive process of a movement, including its frames and identities, while paying attention to actors’ positions within the structural process. We conceive the constitutive process to occur not only within a movement or its strategic/intentional interactions but also through the structural conditions of the field. How do actors’ social positions in long-term processes converge at a certain moment of mobilization? How do long-term political divisions, national policies, or economic crises influence movement groups’ opportunity structures for alliance formation? How do actors’ positions manifest in their coalition formation, and in the embedding of housing contention in broader political struggles? Asking such questions, we embed the analysis of the constitution of movement politics and alliance structures in a field of contention conceived as a historical social process. It follows that analyzing the structural and historical context closely is required in our structural field of contention approach. This kind of fine-grained analysis of structural transformations is an essential part of our field concept.

Thus, in our application of the notion of the field, we shift attention from inherent dynamics to contextual embeddedness similar to social movement studies’ recent turn from the dynamics of movement to their structural conditions. While we support Crossley’s claim that “interactions and relationships both between SMOs and between SMOs and a range of further relevant players who are implicated in the problems or issues identified in social movement discourses” (2006b, p. 4) should be reflected in understandings of the process of contention, we do not consider that these interactions and relationships would form a “social and cultural structure” on their own, even if it is defined as dynamic and “always in process” (ibid.). Just as social movement studies now renounce the claim of an autonomous sphere of movement dynamics (which was also an argument for distinguishing social movement research as an autonomous discipline from other branches of social research) and turn to investigating relations between movement formation and structural shifts, we also apply the notion of field, not in the sense of an autonomous objective structure but as a heuristic tool that helps to make visible those factors of contention that are beyond individual movement actors’ explicit aims and intentional actions, and we understand the latter in the context of the former. While from a structuralist standpoint this interpretation may seem to negate the value of the field concept, we believe it is worthwhile to retain as a heuristic tool for empirical research on social mobilizations. Applied in the latter sense, the notion of a field can assist researchers to grasp actual connections between movement actors and their contexts, without the need to harmonize empirical findings with a projected inner logic of the field or limit their scope to intra-field “rules of the game.” We believe that this approach is particularly suited to tracing how structural tensions generated by broader crisis processes become politicized in a given context. Our comparison between Budapest and Bucharest makes it possible to draw out specific features of this approach that can be applied as tools in other contexts and cases.

Besides the abovementioned aspects, we find that analyzing field transformations over time is essential to see how the field of contention as a structure in process unfolds. In this study, we focus on the field transformations in the period after the financial crisis of 2008. This aspect of our analysis shows how transformations of relations between movement actors, external players, and their broader contextual conditions affect actors’ opportunities and frames, even if their internal organization or intentionality does not change.

Finally, following various levels of processes that simultaneously shape housing conflicts, our analytical use of the field concept emphasizes the multiple scales of interaction implicit in a field of contention. Global flows of financial capital, dynamics of national or local politics, and activist groups’ alliances and conflicts within these processes are simultaneously active in “local” housing conflicts in the two capital cities that we take as case studies. A multi-scalar approach to the field of contention, employing a range of lenses from the local to the global, is thus useful in tracing how the “localization” of broader political and social conflicts occurs throughout interconnected scales of social action.

Conclusion: The Structural Field of Contention Approach

To conclude, the structural field of contention approach proposed in this book extends previous insights in social movement research and applies them to understanding the development of contention, addressing specific effects of the current crisis in local contexts. First, agreeing with previous literature on fields of contention, we emphasize that instead of homogenous actors, movements need to be seen as made up of a multiplicity of actors whose mutual relations and structural embeddedness are among the factors that shape movement dynamics. Second, consistent with Crossley, our approach goes beyond intentional action and conscious movement frameworks to include unintended effects and unrecognized interdependencies in the field. Third, beyond highly visible moments of mobilization, low-visibility phases of organization and political silence over issues otherwise expressed by movement actors are also considered. Fourth, like Crossley, we think of the field of contention as being in constant change, with relations between actors being made and remade across time.

Importantly then, in several respects we go beyond previous applications of the field concept to propose a “structural field of contention” approach. First, we conceive of structural processes to be part of field relations, in line with a recent turn from movement dynamics to movement–context relations in social movement studies. Second, this implies a break with the structuralist concept of the field and defines the field not as an objective, autonomous structure made up of internal rules but as a dynamic field of empirical relationships between actors and their context. Our approach also places a strong emphasis on the transformations of the field as a whole, which can shift actors’ positions and understanding even if their internal characteristics remain the same. Finally, as an approach designed to investigate how the global crisis becomes politicized in local contexts, the structural field of contention concept places strong emphasis on the multiple scales of relationships through which broader processes affect local actors and local forms of contention are developed.