Project code: J6-2578
Project type: ARRS Bilateral Project
Project promoter: University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities; The Institute of Slovenian Ethnology (ISE) SRC SASA, Institute of Contemporary History, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Project leaders: Dr. Saša Poljak Istenič, Assoc. Prof. Valentina Gulin Zrnić
Participating researcher at UP FHŠ: Assoc. Prof. Katja Hrobat Virloget
Source of funding: Public Agency for Scientific Research and Innovation of the Republic of Slovenia (ARIS), Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ)
Research Area (ARIS): 6.04 Humanities / Ethnology
Duration: 01.11.2020–31.10.2023
Webpage: https://www.citymaking.eu/en/
Description:
This project is dedicated to in-depth research of future-making in selected Slovenian and Croatian cities: Hvar, Koper/Capodistria, Kutina, Ljubljana, Maribor, Nova Gorica, Rijeka, Petrinja, Zagreb. Future-making refers to a comprehensive understanding of elements which are combined in imagining, anticipating and perceiving futures – cognitively, discursively, and affectively – as well as in modalities of everyday life and engagement that contain a particular relationship towards futures. “Future” as a (novel) object of study in ethnological/cultural anthropological terms is considered culturally and contextually dependant. Together with the notions of probabilities and possibilities which are immanent to future, it sets the stage for researching multiple urban futures – desired and undesired, official and alternative, supported and resisted, contested, challenged, as well as invisible, “silenced” or “stolen”.
The process of urban future-making will be analyzed from top-down (strategic documents and visions of particular cities) and bottom-up (civil associations and initiatives) perspectives, as well as from individual/personal perspectives (experiences, expectations, practices, particularly of young people). The project is structured around three axes of research: public space (future-oriented spatial-social urban projects and their potential to enhance social integration, inclusion, health, and wellbeing for urban citizens); creativity and innovations (creative hubs developed by various actors to build and promote good practices, education, and social engagement envisioning futures); and civic participation (diverse ways in which citizens enact “the right to the city”, contributing to current debates on effective urban governance as a prerequisite of liveable and sustainable urban futures).
Combining the expertise of the researchers, this project seeks to establish a wider network for comparative ethnological/cultural anthropological (urban) futures research. It will demonstrate that globally small, marginal, and “ordinary” cities, such as those in Slovenia and Croatia, represent a challenging site for urban futures research and contribute to advancing in urban studies theory. By being the first mid-term bilateral cooperation between Slovenian and Croatianethnologists/anthropologists since the countries’ independence, it is also expected to strengthen cross-border academic collaboration, orient ethnology/anthropology in bothcountries towards studying futures and position them on the global map of futuresresearch.