In this piece, we develop a more complex picture of the East-West divisions that have characterized much analysis of the region since the crisis began. By examining how differently positioned actors have responded, the migration flows become a heuristic for other important but less visible processes in post-socialist state formation and Euro-integration. We use the complexity of Serbia's reception as an empirical ground to create a new analytic framework that moves beyond over-simplified dichotomies. Doing this allows us to bring seemingly unrelated kinds of political action into the same frame to reveal an emerging trend in citizen and noncitizen political engagement.

The text reconstructs the representation of life in socialist Yugoslavia, as depicted by ordinary people in Serbia today, on the basis of empirical data collected through focus group interviews. It is shown that this representation is consistent with findings of several studies of Yugonostalgia. What is lamented is material prosperity, social security, chances for employment, free health care and education, but also, as singled out in the analysis, a kind of moral universe in which in was possible to act as autonomous moral agents but which was lost at the beginning of the 1990s. This entire cluster of features is condensed in the label of „normal life“ that Serbian citizens feel they are still denied. The paper closes with a discussion of action and political potentials of Yugonostalgia

Η εργασία αυτή αναψηλαφεί τις διαφορετικές σερβικές ερμηνείες ίου Τραύματος του Κοσσυφοπεδίου από την περίοδο της σέρβικης ανεξαρτησίας μέχρι σήμερα. Επικεντρώνεται στις διαφορετικές ερμηνείες οι οποίες χρησιμοποιούν τον θρύλο ως σημείο αναφοράς για να προσδώσουν σε αυτόν πολιτικές και πολιτισμικές διαστάσεις που συμβαδίζουν με τις ανάγκες κάθε εποχής. Η αποκρυστάλλωση του μύθου είναι ταυτόχρονη με τη διαδικασία συγκρότησης του νεότερου σερβικού κράτους. Επιπλέον, ιδιαίτερη έμφαση δίνεται στις μετά το 1980 ερμηνείες του και στον τρόπο με τον οποίο διαφορετικές πολιτικές δυνάμεις έχουν προσπαθήσει να τον νοηματοδοτήσουν ανάλογα με τις επιδιώξεις τους. Η ανάλυση εξετάζει την εννοιολόγηση του Τραύματος τις τελευταίες δύο δεκαετίες σε άμεση συσχέτιση με τις πολιτικές εξελίξεις και τονίζει την αμφισημία του μύθου του Κοσσυφοπεδίου στη σημερινή Σερβία και τη ρητορική του χρήση από πολιτικές δυνάμεις.

No abstract

The aim of this article is to bring together quantitative and qualitative methodologies in order to examine, within a broadly Bourdieusian theoretical framework, connections between positions in social space and strategies agents deploy in their everyday life. The data are derived from a study of social structure in today’s Serbia, combining survey and interviews with selected respondents. Strategies are conceptualized as a continuum ranging from a more sustained and cumulative, or ‘strategic’, pole to the unsystematic, ephemeral ‘tactical’ pole, as suggested by Michel de Certeau. On the basis of interview data, four types of life strategies are identified (individualist reactive, individualist proactive, collectivist reactive, and collectivist proactive). These strategies are presented through their generic practices and the typical habitus of the agents, along with individual portraits as illustrations. In conclusion, some theoretical implications are derived from data analysis, including departures from Bourdieu’s model.