Staging the Public
Popular Culture and the Politics of Urban Space in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe
for User Experience and Urban Creativity (EGI), an Open-Access, Peer-Reviewed Journal.
Co-editors: Kata Murányi (University of Pécs), Gyula Maksa (University of Pécs)
Submissions should be made through the UXUC journal publishing platform.
Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.
Public space is not only a physical, but a multi-layered setting shaped among others by practices of politics, culture, communication, socialization, and historical factors. Across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, shared urban environments have become key arenas of expressing political will, propaganda, public mood or demand on system and regime change. These cases and processes can be observed as influential elements on local, regional and national identities, and vice versa. Different mediums of popular culture, such as murals, cartoons, posters, mediums of visual culture, music scenes etc., play a central role in these processes and participate in shaping how urban space is experienced and understood. They may reinforce dominant narratives, but they can also appropriate official symbols, articulate dissent, build communities, and make otherwise marginalized actors visible. Popular culture therefore does not simply occupy public space: it contributes to producing publics and counter-publics, negotiating belonging, and transforming the political meanings of the city.
The issue Staging the Public: Popular Culture and the Politics of Urban Space in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe invites contributions that examine the intersections of popular culture, political life, and urban experience across the region. It approaches Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe not as a homogeneous or self-evident geographical category, but as a historically layered, internally diverse, and contested field. The region has been shaped by imperial, socialist, Yugoslav, and post-socialist legacies; uneven processes of European integration; nationalism and populism; migration and displacement; war and post-conflict reconstruction; neoliberal urban development; democratic experimentation; and authoritarian tendencies. These overlapping histories continue to influence how public space is designed, governed, represented, and used.
We are particularly interested in how these transformations become visible, tangible, and negotiable in public space. How do popular-cultural forms translate political conflicts into everyday urban experience? How do the different mediums, processes, arenas of public space used to produce or challenge collective identities? Which actors gain visibility in the city, and whose voices, memories, and cultural practices remain marginalized or excluded?
We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and innovative approaches to these issues.
Calendar:
Submission of author(s)+title+abstract: December 15, 2026
Full paper submission deadline: March 15, 2027
Complete issue announcement: May/June 2027
Continuous publication:
The review process begins as soon as a paper is submitted.
Submissions are published as soon as they are accepted.
Detailed guidelines and additional information on the submission page of UXUC journal publishing platform. Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.
Images Credits: Kata Murányi
