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Irena obtained her PhD in Human Geography in 1998 at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In the context of ever increasingly distressed, divided and unsustainable world her research passion lies in a critical praxis and action research that can bring us more just and hopeful futures. She begun her academic career as a (post)modern critical theorist who pessimistically observed structural socio-spatial inequalities produced by the overarching capitalist patriarchical framework within which our world operates. Yet in the course of her progressive frustration of ‘only-marking-and-not-making-a-difference’ she has moved to the transmodern and transdiciplinary space of commitment to the hopeful scholarship and caring action that awakens the power of individual agency. She has been translating those theoretical ideas into the areas of critical tourism studies, women empowerment and transformative education and in empirical terms into her own classroom as well as in various action oriented projects in ‘peripheral’ communities of Croatia and India. She is a co-founder of the Critical Tourism Studies network dedicated to promote the ‘academy of hope’ concept. She is the author/editor of 3 books and 3 special issues of scientific journals and 40 refereed journal articles, invited essays and chapters in edited volumes.
Research interests:
- Trans-disciplinary engagement in pursuing:
- Critical praxis and action research;
- Critical tourism studies and academy of hope;
- Empowerment and transformative education (for developing sustainability of humanity);
- Women leadership and caring action/feminist politics and praxis;
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