Martina Bofulin and Nataša Rogelja Caf
“Their story begins at ground level, with footsteps,” wrote Michel de Certeau decades ago when reflecting on walking through New York City. Metropolises are defined by their constant mixing and matching, producing hybrid forms that gradually settle into distinct corners of the urban landscape. These forms are reshaped again and again by recurring social encounters that animate daily life in the city’s streets. While large urban centers brim with the potential for fusion and amalgamation, in smaller, more decentralized places this blending unfolds at a different pace and in different ways. Trubarjeva ulica in Ljubljana is one such place.
Once a periphery of an enclosed historical town, Trubarjeva has now become an integral part of the “city center,” bringing with it the vibrant, multicultural flaire associated with today’s trendsetting urban spaces. This collection of blogs written in the frame of the project “Migrants’ emplacement at the micro-level: Restaurants as the contact zones” (ARIS J6-60098 at ZRC SAZU, 2025-2027) explores what lies behind the graffiti-covered walls of Trubarjeva, who is preparing meals in its international eateries, and what conversations unfold at the tables of its many cafés. We begin, quite literally, at street level—with footsteps. This is an experiment, inspired by the work of thinkers such as Doreen Massey, Tim Cresswell, and Henry Miller, who all turned their gaze to the street to understand the social life of the city from the ground up.