ASTRAH – Atlas of Fear: Narratives and Urban Spaces of Dread is a four-year interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Union through the NextGenerationEU programme. The project examines how fear, trauma, and collective memory become embedded in urban space through cultural narratives, architectural forms, and representations in media and popular culture.
At the same time, the ASTRAH project places its primary empirical and digital focus on the city of Zadar—a city shaped by repeated historical ruptures and political transformations, yet largely absent from dominant cultural narratives of urban fear. The core output of the project is the creation of an interactive, GIS-based digital atlas of Zadar, which maps urban locations associated with fear, trauma, and collective memory by linking georeferenced sites to archival documents, historical sources, and cultural materials.
ASTRAH – Atlas of Fear
The main aim of ASTRAH is to develop a systematic analytical framework for understanding cities as spatial archives of fear; spaces shaped by historical violence, social tensions, and cultural imaginaries. The project investigates how particular urban locations come to be recognised and experienced as spaces of unease, and how these perceptions influence everyday movement, behaviour, and senses of belonging. Drawing on cultural geography, urban studies, memory studies, and heritage research, ASTRAH explores the relationship between historical urban spaces and their imagined or mediated representations in literature, film, and popular culture.
Rather than treating maps as purely technical instruments, in this project, we approach mapping as a critical analytical practice that enables the spatial reconstruction of historical processes and the examination of cultural imaginaries within the urban environment. By focusing on Zadar, the project highlights the importance of peripheral and non-metropolitan cities as significant, yet often overlooked, spatial archives of trauma and memory.
From a methodological perspective, ASTRAH adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines cultural and textual analysis with historical and archival research, as well as spatial analysis. The project includes comparative case studies of cities that already occupy prominent places in global imaginaries of urban fear (such as Tokyo, London, Edinburgh, and New York) in order to establish broader analytical and conceptual contexts.
An essential component of ASTRAH concerns ethical heritage practice and public engagement, particularly in relation to the digital representation of sensitive historical material. The project reflects on how digital tools can be used to visualise difficult pasts responsibly, how archival silences can be identified and contextualised, and how research on urban spaces of fear can remain attentive to local contexts. Through its interdisciplinary methodology and the development of a digital atlas, this project aims to contribute to the advancement of innovative approaches to researching and interpreting urban spaces and collective memory.