This chapter situates our inquiry within critical urban studies and research on urban social movements, examining how urban struggles have been conceptualized and from which methodological standpoints. Building on this foundation, we adopt a dramaturgical perspective to analyze the actions of collective actors in the city, introducing the theory of resistance as a lens that foregrounds the practices of organizing and resisting. We argue that this approach adds depth to social movement theory by emphasizing the creative and constructive dimensions of urban struggles. To contextualize our case, we trace developments in Swedish civil society and the welfare state over the past four decades, alongside the escalation of urban inequalities. We highlight how urban conflicts often arise from these inequalities and the material and symbolic production of urban space, stressing the importance of their embedded spatial character—an aspect often overlooked in existing research. The chapter closes by presenting our conceptual and methodological framework and outlining the subsequent parts of the book, which analyze the practices of the tenants’ movement and the urban justice movement.