ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Una River’s unique structure and how Bišćani get to know the river through their senses, imagination, and bodily movements. The chapter argues that the Una’s visible and invisible material properties—and the variety of sensorial experiences they incite—influence Bišćani’s visceral connection to the river and the way they approach themselves, each other, and the earth they live on. More specifically, traversing the river—broadly conceived to include the river’s water and air, flora and fauna, and the subterranean materiality—foregrounds Bišćani’s independence and interdependence, agency and creativity, and hope and anxiety. It also shapes their everyday sociality and, more recently and overtly, their politics; the sensorial, permeable, and embodied dimension of people-river contiguity gives force and flavor to riverine citizenship.
