Langugae SWITCH
In the edited volume Shaken – Scholarly-humanistic and Artistic Responses to the Banija Earthquake, the article “Waiting for reconstruction: The heterochronicity of Petrinja’s ruins” by Mirna Tkalčić Simetić was published.
Abstract:
The earthquake that struck the vicinity of the city of Petrinja on December 29, 2020, claimed seven lives and caused extensive material damage in five Croatian counties. The urban area of Petrinja’s city center was particularly affected, with entire rows of buildings and infrastructure systems damaged, resulting in the evacuation of residents and the complete loss of its functionality. Shortly after the earthquake, a decision was made at the national level to reconstruct this central area in accordance with strict conservation guidelines. The temporary measures of stabilization and protection soon became the only visible intervention within the spatiotemporal isolate of the ruinized materialities of the historic core. Based on ethnographic research conducted from April 2021 to April 2023, this paper analytically examines the ruins of Petrinja during the period of waiting for reconstruction as heterotopias of pronounced heterochronicity – defamiliarizing urban spaces that significantly disrupt conventional perceptions of time. This approach enables a deeper understanding of the relationship between the residents’ experience of time, viewed through the prism of the heterochronicity of the ruins in the post-earthquake city center, and the transformation of their political subjectivity. At the same time, it offers insight into how the inscription of power relations into a space that has lost its form and function reflects on the temporal orientation and political engagement of residents during the prolonged waiting period for the material reconstruction of Petrinja’s city center.
Jasna Čapo
I want an elevator, but can I have one?
On the Conference I WANT AN ELEVATOR! (Zagreb, 27 September 2025)
Jasna Čapo
Island Stories: Susak 3 – Emigrant and Local Visions of the Future
(Cover photo: Costume exhibition at the Salbun Association, photo by J. Čapo, 2024)
An interview with Valentina Gulin Zrnić on the research conducted within the project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027), as well as on current situations and visions of urban development, was published in Večernji list on 6 September 2025, in the supplement Obzor – Culture, Society, Science.
Jasna Čapo
Island Stories: Susak 1 – Emigrant Celebrations
(August 2025)
(Cover photo: Emigrants in traditional Susak costume, photo by M. Blagaić, 2024)
As part of the project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027), we are establishing
the FUTURUS Centre for Urban Futures – a hub for research on urban challenges, connecting stakeholders, and co-creating our shared urban futures.
Today, cities are confronted with a multitude of challenges. More than half of the world’s population resides in urban environments, where transformations are accelerating as a result of migration, climate change, wars and disasters, shifting economies, tourism, digital technologies, and new forms of labor and governance. These dynamics affect people’s lives and everyday urban life.
In shaping our shared urban futures, we recognize the importance of collaboration, dialogue, and networking among members of the academic community, the economic sector, civic and artistic associations and initiatives, experts, creative individuals, and policymakers. With this in mind, we established the FUTURUS Centre to foster cities that are more inclusive, sustainable, just, and resilient.
While urban futures are often framed through technology and design, the FUTURUS Centre highlights the value of a humanistic perspective, rooted in qualitative methodologies and approaches. By focusing on people, we aim to hear the voices of different urban communities, understand their everyday practices and needs, and encourage greater social responsibility.
Through the citymaking.eu network platform, the FUTURUS Centre acts as an international hub connecting projects, institutions, associations, and individuals, encouraging dialogue, collaboration, research, and the sharing of knowledge and inspiration.
The FUTURUS Centre operates through the citymaking.eu network platform as an international hub connecting projects, institutions, associations, and individuals, fostering mutual exchange of information, collaboration, research, and empowerment.
VISION of the FUTURUS Centre
At the FUTURUS Centre, we envision a world where urban governance is shaped through dialogue with interdisciplinary and applied research.
We foster collaboration among scholars, independent researchers, policymakers, and civic and artistic initiatives to jointly create knowledge and solutions, strengthening the role of research in city governance and ensuring that urban futures are co-create knowledge and solutions, strengthening the role of research in urban governance and ensuring that urban futures are inclusive, sustainable, and collectively shaped by diverse communities.
At the FUTURUS Centre, we aim to be proactive and engaged partners in shaping urban policies. We strive to rethink how urban challenges are understood and addressed, helping to make cities more dynamic, resilient, just, and future-oriented for generations to come.
MISSION of the FUTURUS Centre
At the FUTURUS Centre, we focus on several key objectives:
Comparative approach: conducting research across diverse urban contexts to better understand trends, multiple futures, and the dynamics of power that influence them.
Innovative methodologies: developing ethnographies of the future, experimental qualitative methods, and transdisciplinary research approaches.
Global collaboration and knowledge exchange: fostering connections among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers worldwide to exchange insights and best practices.
Public engagement: encouraging civic participation in shaping urban futures through discussions and public events.
Inclusive, just, and sustainable cities: streghtening marginalized voices, nurturing an ethics of solidarity and care, and participation in urban governance.
Education and future literacy: encouraging future-oriented thinking and action through educational programs, workshops, and public discourse across all levels of society.
Public policy and governance: integrating research-based knowledge in urban policy-making, advising on public decision-making processes, improving communication between different governance levels and citizens, and jointly creating long-term urban visions.
ACTIVITIES
At the FUTURUS Centre, we initiate, implement, and support diverse forms of collaboration, dissemination, and knowledge transfer through consultations, workshops, public forums, projects, teaching activities, policy guidelines, artistic interventions, festivals, guest lectures, summer schools, and educational programs.
CITIES involved in our ongoing research projects and collaborations include: Hvar (CRO), Koper (SLO), Kutina (CRO), Ljubljana (SLO), Maribor (SLO), Novska (CRO), Nova Gorica (SLO), Rijeka (CRO), Zagreb (CRO), Petrinja (CRO).
THEMES we explore:
The FUTURUS Centre emerged from a collaboration between the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research (Croatia) and the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Slovenia). The Centre was envisioned in 2019 and developed within the bilateral project Urban Futures: Imagining and Activating Futures in Unsettled Times (HRZZ–ARIS, 2020–2024). It has been realized within the framework of the projects What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027) and What Is Urgent? European Urban Climate Neutrality Policy and Its Local Interpretations (Weave, 2024–2028).
In connection with the main project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices, and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027), and in collaboration with colleagues from ZRC SAZU, a new bilateral research project has been approved: Cities and Futures: Ethnological and Cultural Anthropological Research / Mesta in prihodnosti: etnološke in kulturnoantropološke raziskave (FUTURB).
The project will take place in 2025 and 2026 through a series of working meetings, public discussions, and workshops held in Zagreb and Ljubljana, focusing on three main themes:
The Croatian team is led by Dr. Tihana Rubić, and the Slovenian team by Dr. Saša Poljak Istenič.
Project collaborators include Tatiana Bajuk Senčar, Sanja Đurin, Valentina Gulin Zrnić, Miha Kozorog, Mirna Tkalčić Simetić, and Jaro Veselinovič.
The FUTURB project is conducted as part of the bilateral scientific research cooperation between Croatia and Slovenia, supported by MZOM and ARRS.
Within the framework of the project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices, and Ethics (NextGenerationEU), and published by the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research and the Croatian Ethnological Society, the book Applied Anthropology: Potentials and Careers by Marijana Belaj and Tihana Rubić (Zagreb, 2024) has been released.
On 29 June 2024, Tihana Rubić gave a public lecture titled “Kutina: An Ethnological and Cultural Anthropological Study of the City” at the Moslavina Museum, as part of the events marking Kutina City Day (21–30 June 2024). She presented research conducted within the project on urban futures, with a particular focus on fieldwork carried out in the city of Kutina.
The lecture by Tihana Rubić was part of the activities of the project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices, and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027).
Valentina Gulin Zrnić has been invited to hold a keynote at the first conference of the EU project “Competing Urgencies: Translating Climate Neutrality in the European Union” (EU-URGE).
The conference was held in Warsaw, May 9-10 2024 organized by the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Culture and Arts, University of Warsaw
The Contribution of Urban Anthropology to the Research into Climate Neutral Cities
In this lecture, I will single out some concepts, approaches and methods that arise from or are related to the field of urban anthropology, but also intertwined with other areas that are the focus of my research, such as the anthropology of space and place, and the anthropology of the future. I will present the approaches of social production and construction of space as an analytical grid for the research of spatializing culture (Low), which can be important in terms of research on the materialization of urgency and climate neutrality in public spaces. Another framework within which the topic of climate neutral cities could be further elaborated is urban ethics: ethics of possibilities, ethical projects, ethical imagination, which are based on the question of the urban “good life” and imagination of the relationship to oneself and others in cities (Appadurai, Moore, Ege etc). Finally, I will look back at the potential of urban comparison (contrastive approach, refiguration) (Färber, Knoblauch and Löw etc) and raise the issue about the value of cultural anthropological expertise in applicative and policy making domains.
Project leader:
Valentina Gulin Zrnić, PhD, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research
Associates:
Jasna Čapo, PhD, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research
Sanja Đurin, PhD, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research
Tihana Rubić, PhD, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Mirna Tkalčić Simetić, PhD student, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research
The focus of the research project lies in the processes of multiple redefinitions of urban identities and ways of life in Croatian cities under the influence of various global and national trends and policies (deindustrialization, development of new and creative industries, development of digital technologies, post-earthquake reconstruction, touristification, migrations, neoliberal governance, development of sustainability strategies etc.). Through qualitative cultural anthropological (ethnographic, archival, discursive, comparative) research on urban policies, urban ethics, concepts of “good life” and everyday life, the project aims to contribute to a broadly contextualized scientific knowledge of the transformations of urban life in Croatian cities of different sizes, historical development and contemporary situations. On this basis, it will be able to interpret the actors, factors, relationships and atmospheres that influence the current state, with a particular focus on understanding the future-making in the cities studied and the role of citizens in this process.
Academically, the project will contribute to the conceptual and methodological development of urban studies, futures studies, disaster studies, outdoor studies and migration studies. In addition, the project has envisaged various forms of dissemination and knowledge transfer, such as conferences, university lectures, workshops and public discussions. The relevance of the project is based on the complementarity with urgent issues and urban development policies at European level and the further possibility to use the project results in the elaboration of strategic documents and guidelines as well as in awareness raising and empowerment for civic engagement (“Right to the City”,” “futures literacy”).
The project is funded by NextGenerationEU
Valentina Gulin Zrnić, Mirna Tkalčić Simetić, and Tihana Rubić conducted field research in the settlements of Krvavica and Bratuš in the Municipality of Baška Voda from October 9 to 12, 2025.
The research was carried out at the invitation and in the organization of the civil association Pravo na grad and the organization Društvo i prostor.
The aim of the study was to conduct qualitative research with local residents on topics related to community needs and development, particularly in the context of seasonal over-tourism, future spatial planning of the settlements, the renovation of a neglected tourist complex, and visions for the development of the area and the community.
Students of ethnology and cultural anthropology also participated in the research, joined by students of architecture and their colleagues, architects from the aforementioned civil organizations, who carried out architectural mapping and spatial design.
On Thursday, October 9, 2025, Valentina Gulin Zrnić and Mirna Tkalčić Simetić gave a public lecture on cultural-anthropological methodology, while architects Tea Truta and Lucia Majica spoke about spatial planning and civic participation.
The research findings were presented to the local community on Sunday, October 12, 2025, with the aim of connecting disciplines and bodies of knowledge, sharing the results with residents, and discussing possible applications of the proposed ideas for community development and change.
(Cover photo: Interior of the former holiday-health resort complex in Krvavica, photographed by Mirna Tkalčić Simetić, October 10, 2025.)
As part of the project “What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices and Ethics” (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027) and the FUTURUS Center, we are holding Urban Imagination Workshops during 2025.
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 19 March 2025
What Kind of Cities Do We Want?
(undergraduate students of ethnology and cultural anthropology)
University of Ljubljana, 20 May 2025
Living in a Future City
(Master’s and PhD students in the ERASMUS programme)
Ethnographic Museum, Zagreb, 10 June 2025
A Private Corner in Public Space
(staff of the Museum)
Workshop leaders: Valentina Gulin Zrnić and Saša Poljak Istenič
Jasna Čapo
Island Stories: Susak 2 – Americans’ Attachment to the Island
(September 2025)
(Cover photo: Croatian and American flags on a house on Susak, photo by J. Čapo, 2024)
Tihana Rubić, as part of the project What Kind of Cities Do We Want? Contemporary Transformations of Urban Visions, Practices and Ethics (NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027), participated on 19 August 2025 in a one-day workshop “Research Communication for Academics”, led by Marina Gorzig, PhD, Institute for Statistical and Data Science.
The workshop was organized as part of the seminar and professional development programme of INSTATS.
Excerpt from the workshop description: This one-day workshop teaches researchers how to effectively communicate their work to students, policymakers, and the media, emphasizing the importance of translating academic findings into impactful real-world applications. By focusing on equity-focused research, participants will gain the skills needed to foster engaging educational environments, influence policy decisions, and present their research compellingly to broader audiences.
✅
Valentina Gulin Zrnić participated in the conference of the AESOP Thematic Group Public Spaces and Urban Culture, organized by the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia, the Polygon – Centre for Cultural Research and Project Development, and the University of Rijeka DELTALAB – Centre for Urban Transition, Architecture and Urbanism.
The conference took place in three cities – Ljubljana, Rijeka, and Cres, and during the three-day event (16–18 June 2025), held under the title Urban Cultures, Public Space, and Hope, 28 presentations were delivered by colleagues from the fields of urban planning, architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, art, art history, and cultural anthropology.
Valentina Gulin Zrnić:
Walking ethnographies: cultural anthropological steps along Zagreb streets (abstract)
Within the current cultural anthropological project on urban futures, walking and hope have been introduced into urban research both as conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches. Walking is not merely a habitual movement between two locations but it constitutes a way of knowing that creates spatialized, temporalized, cognitive, embodied, affective, contextualized, interactive and responsive experiences which construct our everyday life and subjectivities. Hope is one of many futural orientations, a specific teleoaffect of the „vernacular timespace“, and, much like walking, hope is always in motion, „a tendency, towards something“ (Bryant and Knight), as well as a method of living in indeterminacy (Miyazaki).
This presentation combines theoretical reflections with an emphasis on walking ethnographies as a research technique in cultural anthropology as well as in the boprader fields of the humanities and social sciences. Walking as a method opens up new sets of questions and associations, evokes memories and generates to new urban imaginaries. In walking ethnographies, there is a potential to capture many of the dimensions of human experience while „going along with“ (Ingold) and being in and through urban atmospheres (Pink and Sumartojo).
Presenting various examples, we will walk through the streets and squares of Zagreb immersed in a protest march and religious procession, among colorfully decorated festival streets, or along ruined post-earthquake streets while discussing aspects of affective capital, urban diversity, spatial justice and political subjectivity. This presentation draws upon a decade of doing walking ethnographies and is grounded in current research project “What kind of cities do we want? Contemporary transformations of urban visions, practices and ethics” (NextGenerationEU) at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb (www.citymaking.eu).
Mirna Tkalčić Simetić held a presentation at the 17th SIEF Congress titled UNwriting, which took place from 3 to 6 June 2025 in Aberdeen, Scotland. She participated in the panel Fluctuating Narratives and Unwritten Stories: The Ephemeral Memory of the City with the paper Unwriting the Post-Earthquake City: A Street Art Intervention.
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the 2020 earthquakes that struck the cities of Zagreb and Petrinja, as well as the surrounding regions, questions of recovery, justice, and urban transformation have become central to social, political, and media narratives in Croatia. This case study, based on long-term ethnographic research, examines the conceptual artist Siniša Labrović’s politically engaged performance, held in Zagreb’s streets in July 2022. At the time, Zagreb was in a “waiting phase,” identified in the research as a period of anticipation for systematic state-led reconstruction efforts. The artistic intervention, created during this time of great uncertainty, addressed the socio-political responses and consequences of the earthquakes.
The paper explores the potential of performance art and ethnographic representations to disrupt dominant political narratives of the city’s reconstruction. It considers how this performance can foster transformation and envision more just urban spaces, temporalities, and narratives. Additionally, it reflects on my dual role as a city resident and ethnographer, observing and participating in the event, while reengaging with the urban past (but also futures) through various academic representations of the performance later on.
The leading premise is that the event’s re-emergence in different temporal and spatial locations – through both the performance itself and subsequent representations – disrupts conventional relationships between past, present, and future. At the same time, it challenges the divide between the “written” and the tacit. These disruptions open pathways to addressing evolving questions about recovery by examining the complex entanglements and contestations of urban life in the post-earthquake period from diverse perspectives.
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