Daša Ličen is a Research Associate at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology, ZRC SAZU, lecturer at the ZRC SAZU Postgraduate School, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Maribor. She holds a PhD in Ethnology, Cultural and Social Anthropology from the University of Ljubljana.
Her research lies at the intersection of ethnology and history, with a particular focus on changes in everyday practices in the final decades of the Habsburg Monarchy. She explores the formation of social classes, national identifications, human–environment relations (especially relations with animals), and transformations in food practices. Geographically, her work often focuses on Trieste, while situating her findings within a broader Central European context.
Daša Ličen draws on approaches from anthropology, ethnology, and history to shed light on and explain the profound social transformations that took place in the second half of the long nineteenth century. She is particularly interested in the emergence of new forms of collective identification (especially class- and nation-based) and changes in dietary practices.
In recent years, her work has focused on the development of human–animal relations, as the nineteenth century marked a period in which the animal world became both highly valued and increasingly exploited, with the roots of environmental degradation traceable to this time. She also engages in ethnographic research on contemporary society, particularly in the fields of food and the instrumentalization of the past.
She is a member of the executive board of the European Ethnological Society’s Food Research Network (SIEF Food Research). Through various research fellowships, she has held visiting positions at the University of Graz, INALCO, the European University Institute (EUI), IOS Regensburg, the University of Oslo, and has been a frequent guest researcher at the University of Vienna. Her dissertation on the identification practices of the nineteenth-century Trieste bourgeoisie has been published as a monograph (Meščanstvo v zalivu) and is currently being translated into Italian.
2026 (coedited with Wolfgang Göderle) Special issue Habsburg Animals. Traditiones 55(1). ZRC SAZU. https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/traditiones/issue/view/1010
2025 (coedited with Alexander Maxwell) Habsburg Civil Servants. Between Civil Society and the State. Berghahn Books. https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MaxwellHabsburg
2025 Against “Plebeian Ignorance” and for “Civilized Behavior”: Habsburg Trieste’s Società Zoofila as a Bourgeois Instrument. Austrian History Yearbook, 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0067237825000207
2024 Naturwissenschaftler im Triest der späten Habsburgermonarchie: Eine national indifferente Insel im Getöse der zeitgenössischen Politik? Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 35(2), 187–210. https://doi.org/10.25365/oezg-2024-35-2-10
2023 Meščanstvo v zalivu: društveno življenje v habsburškem Trstu. Studia humanitatis, Založba ZRC.
2022 Tržaško Društvo ljubiteljev živali in njegove dame. Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino (62)2, 8–28. 10.51663/pnz.62.2.01.
2022 Zbližati, izobraziti in razvedriti slovanski živelj: članstvo Slavjanskega društva v Trstu ob pomladi narodov. Kronika: časopis za slovensko krajevno zgodovino 70(2), 363–374. https://kronika.zzds.si/kronika/article/view/4045/4458.
2019 Jadransko naravoslovno društvo od nastanka leta 1874 do prve svetovne vojne. Kronika: časopis za slovensko krajevno zgodovino 67 (3), 531–544. http://www.dlib.si/details/URN:NBN:SI:DOC-HIW0TJUE
2018 Reinventing Habsburg Cuisine in Twenty-First Century Triest. Folklore, 71
2018 Razstaviti Drugega: Saidin prihod v Trst. Glasnik Slovenskega etnološkega društva. 58 (1/2), 5–15.
2017 The Vagaries of Identification in the Società di Minerva of Trieste (1810-1916)
Traditiones 46 (1–2, Supl.): 35–54.
2017 Med cesarstvom, nacijo in nostalgičnimi vizijami? Postavljanje in odstavljanje spomenikov habsburškega Trsta. Zgodovina za vse: vse za zgodovino 24 (1): 20–31. http://www.dlib.si/?URN=URN:NBN:SI:doc-YU1F7WWF
2016 The “Authentic” Blend: Experts Weigh in on Istrian Food. Digest. A journal of foodways & culture 5 (2).
2015 The fine and the tasteless Istrian culinary experts and taste. Traditiones 44 (3): 113–130. https://doi.org/10.3986/Traditio2015440306
- Wildlife in Borderlands (fundamental research project • March 1, 2026 - February 28, 2029)
- Grain of Salt, Crystallising Cohabitation. Salt-making as Experiental Environmental Wisdom (fundamental research project • October 1, 2023 - September 30, 2026)
- Discourses and Practices of the In-Between in the Alpine-Adriatic Region: Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Trieste 1815-1914 (international research project • April 1, 2023 - March 31, 2026)
- For Beasts, Against Savages: Towards the Long History of Animal Rights Movement (postdoctoral research project • November 1, 2022 - June 30, 2025)
- Ethnological, anthropological and folklore studies research on everyday life (research programme • January 1, 2022 - December 31, 2027)
- Hraniti zmago: Preskrba s hrano in postimperialna tranzicija v čeških deželah in Sloveniji, 1918-1923 (bilateral project • January 1, 2021 - February 28, 2025)
- Postimperialne tranzicije in transformacije iz lokalne perspektive: slovenska mejna območja med dvojno monarhijo in nacionalnimi državami (1918-1923) (July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2022)
- the Faculty of Arts Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the humanities and social sciences (2020/2021)
- the Karl Kaser Prize for the most outstanding work in the field of historical anthropology of Southeast Europe
- Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin of the Slovene Ethnological Society (2029–2023)
- Head of the Cultural Heritage Section within the Slovenian Historical Association
- 2024 – JESH Fellowship
- 2020 – Ernst Mach Fellowship
- 2018/2019 – Fulbright Fellowship
- 2018 – Dr Bojan Erhartič Fellowship
- 2018 – Austrian Government Scholarship
- 2017 – French Government Scholarship