BIOGRAPHY OF THE CITY AS A SUBGENRE OF THE URBAN STUDIES

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to try to delineate the problematic profile of "city biography" in the interdisciplinary field of contemporary urban studies. The following conclusions were made: "Biography of the City" is becoming a full-fledged subgenre in the structure of modern urban studies. Its worldview and value basis is the idea of the city as a living being (organism, personality, special subject, etc.), which has a unique soul / spirit, individual history of its life, its own biography. Biography is the embodiment of the integrity of history and culture, a synthesis of people's lives. We find the conceptual foundations for comparing individual life and the existence of supra-individual sociocultural phenomena, such as a city, in the principle of isomorphism, homology, homomorphism (coincidence (assimilation) of the structure of objects that are considered in a certain respect). The methodological profile of the “city biography” is determined by the application of the biographical approach in its various interdisciplinary variations to the study of the city phenomenon. Attention is also drawn to the "biography of the city" as a research strategy and significant socio-cultural practice.