Spatial Factors of Conflict in the Use of Urban Symbolic Geopolitical Capital in Russia

The aim of the work is to identify spatial factors of conflict in the use of urban symbolic geopolitical capital in the Russian Federation. The urban symbolic geopolitical capital in the study is understood as a set of accumulated geopolitical meanings of the city, territories and individual places. Environmental symbolic resources, namely urban signs or symbol carriers, have unique properties that give an advantage to the actors of symbolic politics using them in the competitive struggle. The meanings, values and emotions that these symbols and signs are endowed with can have both positive and negative connotations in the representations of different groups. The same symbol (a historical person or event) can have the opposite connotation in different places. These features are actively used in symbolic politics at different spatial levels. Of the more than one hundred cases of modern conflicts with the use of geopolitical symbols and commemorative signs dedicated to them in the cities of the Russian Federation collected from media materials, 20 related to symbols of the pre-socialist era and the period of the Civil War and foreign intervention of 1917–1922 were analyzed using a special methodology. The paper presents an analysis of the significance of various “local” geopolitical symbols and signs for the formation of geopolitical symbolic capital and its use in modern Russian urban and regional symbolic politics, both in constructive, creative practice, and in conflict interactions and even destructive practices. It is concluded that the location changes the content of the conflict over “local” geopolitical symbols and signs in accordance with the following factors: the relation of events associated with the symbol to the place; the presence and spatial distribution of conflicting identities/social groups associated with the symbol; characteristics of public exposure and potential audience coverage; competitiveness of the place; hierarchy of locations; spatial structure ownership and relationships about power and influence. Related to the genius of the place by the character, to the place.

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