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Paper short abstract:

This paper approaches walking in the post-earthquake city of Zagreb as a research process of participation in emergent atmospheres that reflect, subvert or oppose general atmosphere of uncertainty continually produced by political decisions through perpetutaing socio-spatial unjustice.

Paper long abstract:

In March and December 2020 two strong earthquakes hit Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, causing the loss of one life and great material damage. Almost three years since those events, very few steps have been made towards successfull post-earthquake recovery, leaving many citizens displaced or living in materially unstable buildings. At the same time, cracks in destabilized facades permanently threaten spaces beneath them, namely sidewalks as transitory public spaces of great significance. Walking in an unsafe and unstable city adds new layers to the qualitative technique of „walking ethnography“ (Gulin Zrnić and Škrbić Alempijević 2019:30) apprehended as a mobile interview. The aim of this paper is to broaden the concept of walking ethnography to all walking practices in the fieldwork setting, including solitary research walks, walking in organized protests and walking during informal conversations. By doing so, walking becomes an entry to „knowing in, about and through atmospheres“ (Sumartojo and Pink 2019), serving as a methodological and analytical tool which enables approaching experiental worlds of others (and our own) and better understanding of „conditions in which atmospheres emerge and the meanings that people ascribe to them“ (ibid.: 6). I propose that walking research practices performed in the center of Zagreb contribute to emergence of atmospheres whose temporal, spatial and affective dimensions reflect politically and historically produced socio-spatial injustices and in different ways address general atmosphere of uncertainty. Also, such approach reveals uncertainty inherent to atmospheres themselves, ucertainty of moving through materially unstable environmet and the one regarding city futures.

Gulin Zrnić, Valentina i Nevena Škrbić Alempijević. 2019. Grad kao susret – etnografije zagrebačkih trgova. Zagreb: Hrvatsko etnološko društvo, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.

Pink, Sarah i Shanti Sumartojo. 2019. Amospheres and the Experiental World – Theory and Methods. Oxon, New York: Routledge.