Affordances of absence
Collective imaginaries, passive participation, and the politics of care for public space in post-industrial Ostrava
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kristina Alda (Charles University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14649365.2026.2733170 |
| OpenAlex | W7220470849 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 35 |
This article examines how urban absences – vacant buildings, derelict lots, and unrealized projects – become sites through which new forms of attention, imagination, care, and public life emerge in the post-industrial Czech city of Ostrava. It contributes to current debates in urban cultural geography on shrinking cities, geographies of absence, and the affective politics of public space. Based on long-term ethnographic research, I develop a relational framework for understanding absence not as lack but as a materially and historically constituted condition encountered through embodied movement. Drawing on James Gibson’s theory of affordances and Michael Warner’s notion of publics, I show how repeated encounters with urban absences redirect attention, making possibilities for action, imagination, and care perceptible. Residents engage not only through direct activism but also through quieter forms of participation, including nostalgic memory work, online discussion, and attentive inhabitation. Rather than treating absence as merely symbolic of decline, the article shows how post-socialist urban voids contribute to the formation of publics and the reworking of collective urban imaginaries. Empty spaces become starting points for civic reinvention.
absence · affordances · collective imaginary · Ostrava · passive participation · politics of care · post-industrial cities · Public space · Urban regeneration · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Urban and sociocultural dynamics · Urbanization and City Planning
Present Pasts
Industrial Ruins
Affordances can invite behavior
Negotiating Possibilities in Shrinking Cities
People Without Things
Politics in Color and Concrete
Urban Theory Beyond the West
The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia
Being Alive
Postsocialism through the lens of shrinking cities and urban infrastructure
Moving post-socialist publics
Collective culture and urban public space
Rethinking vacancy within the urbanization process
Whatever happened to the (post)socialist city
The post-socialist cities from Central and Eastern Europe
An Anthropology of Absence
Reckoning with ruins
Absence/presence and the ontological politics of heritage
Ruins and the politics of disappearance
Secondhandedness
Disappearance 'in motion
Urban belonging as place-based affect
The importance of absence in the present
Anthropology and traces
Placing and tracing absence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |