Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula

An Anthropological Study of the Tapija Phenomenon in Northwest Croatia

Andrea Matošević
Translated by Andrew Hodges

144 pages, 5 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-80073-135-6 Hb Published (July 2021)

eISBN 978-1-80073-136-3 eBook

Details

Based on interviews and fieldwork conducted among residents of Pula, a coastal city in Northwestern Croatia, this study explores various aspects of a local feeling of boredom. This is mirrored in the term tapija, a word of Turkish origin describing a property deed, and in Pula’s urban slang it has morphed from its original sense describing a set of affective states into one of lameness, loneliness, unwillingness, and irony. Combining lively conversations with a significant bibliography of the topic, the result is a compelling local anthropological study of boredom in a wider historical and global context.

Andrea Matošević is an associate professor at the Faculty of Humanities and one of the founders and researchers at the Centre for Culturological and Historical Research of Socialism, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Croatia).