Ethnology of the Balkans

This course introduces students to past and current ethnological/anthropological research in the Balkans.
It provides a brief historical overview of social changes in the Balkans, focusing on imperial legacies and the complex processes of nationalization and modernization in the Balkan Peninsula. Through the analysis of various materials and genres, the course critically engages with the othering of the Balkans (Balkanism, Orientalism, etc.) and the often problematic dominant epistemological orientations in the analysis of contemporary societies in the Balkan Peninsula.
Students will learn about the central interests of researchers interested in the Balkans, and gain insight into some contemporary issues central to understanding the past and present realities in the Balkans. The course critically examines phenomena often associated with the Balkans (periphery, violence, religious revival, nationalism, ethnic conflict, patriarchy, etc.). Students will learn about ethnographic studies that address contemporary issues in specific places: Remembering and forgetting, post-war reconstruction, urban-rural dichotomy, migration and emigration, pollution, unemployment, hope, etc. The course introduces students to basic concepts, terms, and theories that enable an understanding of the dynamic social, economic, cultural, and political processes in the Balkans. It promotes critical thinking about constructed otherness and the benefits of ethnographic methods in the study of contemporary phenomena and everyday life in the Balkans.

Allcock, J. 2002, Explaining Yugoslavia. London: Hurst. [COBISS.SI-ID 981620]
Goldsworthy, V. 1998. Inventing Ruritania. The Imperialism of Imagination. New Haven in London: Yale University Press. [COBISS.SI-ID 794484]
Jezernik, B., 2004. Wild Europe. The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers. London: Saqi Books. [COBISS.SI-ID 25113186]
Jezernik, B., 2010. Imagining 'the Turk. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. [COBISS.SI-ID 41416802]
Todorova, M. 1997. Imagining the Balkans. New York in Oxford: Oxford University Press. COBISS.SI-ID –6392653. [COBISS.SI-ID 247557376]
Bringa, T. 199 Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village. Princeton University Press. [COBISS.SI-ID 16618333]
Green S. 2005. Notes from the Balkans: Locating Marginality and Ambiguity on the Greek Albanian Border. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [COBISS.SI-ID 49871970]
Petrović, T. ur. 2014. Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and Europeanization in Balkan societies. Leiden, Boston: Brill. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&AN=92966…
Schwartz, J. 1997 ‘»Roots« and »Mosaic« in a Balkan Border Village: Locating Cultural Production.' In: Siting Culture: The Shifting Anthropological Object. Karen Fog Olwig in Kirsten Hastrup, eds. London: Routledge. PP. 255–67.
Herzfeld, M. 2016. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies, and Institutions. New York: Routledge. [COBISS.SI-ID 602765]
Bougarel, X., E. H. and G. Duijzings, ur. 2007. The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society. Aldershot: Ashgate. [COBISS.SI-ID 66387298]
Bartulović, A. 2013. "Nismo vaši!": antinacionalizem v povojnem Sarajevu. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete. COBISS.SI-ID 264310272
Jovanovic, D. 2018. “Prosperous Pollutants: Bargaining with Risks and Forging Hopes in an Industrial Town in Serbia.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 83(3): 489-504. COBISS.SI-ID 143750 https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2016.1169205
Montgomery, D. 2019. Everyday Life in the Balkans, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. COBISS.SI-ID 44143405 https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&AN=19369…
Helms, E. 2010. The Gender of Coffee: Women, Refugee Return, and Reconciliation Initiatives after the Bosnian War. Focaal 57: 17-32. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233623909_The_gender_of_coffee…