Varshaver, E., Rocheva, A. (2015). Manual for organizing a sociological study of a locality. Academia.edu. [in Russian]

The text provides a manual for conducting a sociological study of a locality in connection with the aim of investigating a corresponding local community. The study is based on the questions: «Who, with whom, how and on what grounds communicates in the neighborhood?», «How do different groups move around the neighborhood and use its infrastructure?», «How does the information circulate in the neighborhood?». On the grounds of the social network analysis traditions, the authors suggest considering the locality of the community as a network, contemplating any objects in connection with each other, visualizing and analyzing the resulting network. Such a network implies four types of nodes: (1) individuals or social groups, (2) public spaces and events, (3) topics and (4) loсal communication tools. The data for developing such a network are gathered in a series of interviews with people who live or on other grounds are present in the area. The text also examines the issues of selecting informants and spots for observation, the peculiarities of the researchers’ work format and field documents, as well as presents an interview guide and an example of a conducted interview, a plan for the public space description and an example of such a description, and moreover, an example of the population typology of a Moscow neighborhood.