Projects / Programmes
Urban Futures: Imagining and Activating Possibilities in Unsettled Times
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.04.00 |
Humanities |
Ethnology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.04 |
Social Sciences |
Sociology |
cities, futures, visions, public spaces, creativity, civil participation
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
April 23, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
Data for ARIS tenders (
04.04.2019 – Programme tender,
archive
)
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
27 |
71 |
64 |
2.37 |
| Scopus |
88 |
473 |
379 |
4.31 |
Researchers (6)
Organisations (3)
Abstract
The future influences the present just as much as it does the past, Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out more than a century ago. This fact is currently demonstrated in movements searching for a better future as well as in global, European, national, and local developmental strategies. Even though the future has historically not been an explicit focus of ethnological/anthropological research, grassroots appeals to the future have recently inspired a shift in disciplinary focus. This project intends to contribute pioneering work on urban futures in ethnology in both participating countries: Slovenia and Croatia. Urban future-making has been chosen as the research focus since cities represent the central loci of power and, as such, accumulate strategies and tactics imagining, anticipating, and aspiring to the future. Future-making in this project refers to a comprehensive understanding of the elements that combine in imagining and realizing futures. The “future” as an object of study in ethnological/anthropological terms is considered culturally and contextually contingent, thus multiple and contested. The study will be conducted in eight cities in Slovenia and Croatia that will serve as the case-studies of comparative, cross-border research aiming to test the significance of national specificities for future-making. Firmly grounded in ethnography, the project will bridge the current gap in futures research, as it remains predominantly quantitative and model-oriented. The objectives of the project are – besides carrying out cross-border ethnographic research – to generate new knowledge in understanding the future at the intersection of urban issues identified as crucial by the global/EU agendas: public spaces, urban creativity, and civic participation. The research team will also follow two applied goals: it will give civil actors a voice in urban future-making and set the grounds for potential establishing of collaborative and cross-urban futures research centre. The project team consists of ten researchers – five researchers from each country – with an established history of collaboration. Each potential team member has a background in ethnology and cultural anthropology, and their research interests are compatible with the project theme. Their project research will be based on theoretical literature reviews, discursive analyses of strategic documents and media reports, and ethnographic fieldwork. They will consider top-down (strategic), bottom-up (urban initiatives), and individual (invisible citizens) perspectives. Their research in selected cities will intertwine the project’s basic topics of public space, urban creativity, and participation. This will also entail focusing on diverse urban issues and actors. These include the influence of global and EU agendas on urban futures and actors; the effects of tourism on the new narratives on urban futures; migrants’ creation of urban futures via entrepreneurship; local strategic visions and infrastructural projects; young people’s future-making; future-making in ethnically diverse towns; the integration of futuristic projects in peripheral towns; the dynamics of green urban future-making; actors and agendas shaping imagining and realization of post-industrial urban futures; spatial interventions in redefining a city’s future; and social experiments building alternative urban futures. Researchers will disseminate their research results through scientific articles in prominent ethnological/anthropological publications, conference presentations, and public events. The project will demonstrate that globally small, marginal, and “ordinary” cities 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 Croatian ethnologists/anthropologists since the countries’ independence, the project will also strengthen cross-border academic collaboration, orient ethnology/anthropo
