I am a human geographer with a background in psychology. My interests are on different forms of urban and geopolitical conflict and how these become entangled with everyday places, lives and experiences. Moreover, I am interested in the intimate and embodied ways in which intersectional identities are caught in the web of geographies of exclusion and violence. My research thus sits at the intersection of feminist geographies and theories of affect, emotion and atmospheres.

I received a PhD in Geography from the University of Arizona, USA, and a MA in Psychology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. My work has received funding from several external funding programs, including Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Grant and the Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

My research develops in the following three directions:

AFFECT, URBAN SPACE AND GEOPOLITICS

These works center on the theoretical, methodological and ethical commitment to reframe geopolitical power through the level of the affective and the everyday. They further veer into the complexities of material, affective and atmospheric landscapes of daily urban life in the aftermath of violence in ways that complements and challenges institutional, legal, and state-based analysis of the urban.

Selected publications:

• Laketa, S. 2016. “Geopolitics of affect and emotions in a post-conflict city”, Geopolitics, 21(3), 661-685.
• Laketa, S. 2019. “’Even if it didn’t happen, it’s true’: The fantasy of geopolitics in the ‘post-truth’ era”, Emotion, Space and Society, 31, 155-161.
• Fregonese, S. and Laketa, S. 2022. “Urban atmospheres of terror”, Political Geography, 96 (5), 102569.
• Laketa, S. and Fregonese, S. 2022. “Lockdown and the intimate entanglements of terror, virus, and militarism”, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, DOI: 10.1177/23996544221143041

SOCIAL DIFFERENCE AND GEOGRAPHIES OF EXCLUSION

Another important realm of interest is the question of social difference and the role that intersectional identities play in constituting spaces and places. My work addresses in particular the social and spatial processes of racialization, ethnicization and nationalism, as well as youth identities, and pays attention to the politics of resistance that is mobilized to subvert geographies of exclusion, in different places across the Balkans and western Europe as well.

Selected publications:

• Laketa, S. 2016. “Youth as geopolitical subjects: the case of Mostar, Bosnia and   Herzegovina”. In Kallio, K. and Mills, S. (eds.), Politics, Citizenship and Rights, Vol. 7 of Skelton, T. (ed.) Geographies of Children and Young People. Singapore: Springer, pp. 153 – 169.
• Laketa, S. 2018. "Between ‘this’ side and ‘that’ side: performativity, youth identities and sticky spaces", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(1), 178-196.
• Laketa, S. 2021. “Performativity”. In Kobayashi, A. (ed). The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2^nd Ed., Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 65-70.
• Autor*innenkollektiv Geographie und Geschlecht (eds.) 2021. “Handbuch Feministische Geographien. Arbeitsweisen und Konzepte”. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich.

KNOWLEGDE PRODUCTION, SUBJECTIVITY, AND DECOLONIALITY IN ACADEMIA

My further interests relate to the politics of knowledge production within contemporary neoliberal academy, questions of mental health at academic workplaces, and the contradictions of academic subjectivities and other relations of intimacy. I’m particularly interested in collaborative ways to challenge the colonial epistemic regimes about the Balkans and disrupt the uneven power geometries in which we, as scholars, teachers, and researchers, ourselves partake.

Selected publications:

• SJ Triglava (eds.), “On the Possibilities of Knowing the Balkans Otherwise”. Budapest: CEU Press (forthcoming).
• Laketa, S. and Côte, M. 2023. “Discomforts in the academy: from ‘academic burnout’ to collective mobilisation”, Gender, Place and Culture, 30(4), 574-587.

Invited talks (selection):

2022. “Banal warfare in the terrorized city”, Humangeographisches Kolloquium, University of Jena, Germany.

2021. “Solidarity in Academia”, Gender and Diversity Commission, University of St Gallen.

2020. “Affective Atmospheres of Urban Lockdown”, Lecture series “Enjeux sociaux – enjeux spatiaux”, University of Geneva.

2019. “Terrorism and the city: affect, space and violence in urban Europe”, Seminar Series, Cosmopolis Center for Urban Research, Brussels, Belgium.

2018. “Grad i afektivna geopolitika svakodnevnog života“, Crvena – Association for Culture and Art, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2017. “Between ‘this’ side and ‘that’ side: on performativity, youth identities and sticky spaces”, Colloquium Series, University of Birmingham, UK.

Courses taught (selection):

Gender space and difference: introduction to feminist geographies (with Laure Sandoz)

Cities and conflict

Political geography (with Simon Noori)