Working Papers

2014/36

Citizenship as lived experience: belonging and documentality after the breakup of Yugoslavia

Jelena Vasiljevic

Abstract
Citizenship is usually thought of in terms of legal and political parameters setting the conditions for individuals statuses and rights, and so has been the case in its application to the post-Yugoslav context. With the primary interest in the top-down perspective, citizenship has been described as a tool with which new states regulated their respective citizenship bodies. But, equally, by granting us documents (passports, birth and marriage certificates, IDs, etc.) which connect us to a wider community, and by employing an array of ethnic, cultural and state symbols, citizenship instills us with a sense of belonging, membership and identity. Furthermore, through our enacting of rights and duties of citizenship, it becomes an inextricable element of our everyday experience. It is especially when questioned and contested that citizenship plays a significant role in how we perceive ourselves, how we appear to others and how intergroup relations are mediated. This paper focuses on personal narratives that reveal lived experiences of the triangular relationship between citizenship, identity and (national) belonging in the post-Yugoslav space. Its aim is to shed some light on a less examined perspective of citizenship transformations, and to complement the currently existing literature on citizenship regimes in the post-Yugoslav states with a bottom-up approach that treats citizenship in its identity-forming and recognition-bearing social role.

Keywords
citizenship, post-Yugoslav states, life stories, belonging.

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2013/35

Citizenship and Religion in the Post-Yugoslav States

Milja Radovic

Abstract
In this paper I explore the ways in which religion and religious institutions impact citizenship regimes in the post-Yugoslav states, both explicitly and implicitly. I approach citizenship as membership and through the dimension of identity. The issue of identity, as I will show in this paper, has been at the core of the triadic nexus of political community, ethnic belonging and religious affiliation, which has had further impacts on the understanding of political membership, and the definitions of who belongs and how.

Keywords
Religion, identity, membership, ethnocentrism, ethnophyletism

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2013/34

Citizenship in an independent Scotland: legal status and political implications

Jo Shaw

Abstract
Defining citizenship status and allocating citizenship rights would be an independent Scotlands Who Do We Think We Are? moment, giving concrete form to the tricky question of who are the Scots?. Determining who its citizens are would be one of the main prerogatives of a newly sovereign Scottish state. Yet the questions of citizenship status and citizenship rights have received much less attention than many of the other issues which the prospect of independence raises, such as monetary matters and Scotlands economic prospects in a globalised world, defence and security, and pensions and the welfare state. Drawing on research on citizenship across Europe, especially the case of the new states of south east Europe, this paper looks at the options for citizenship in a new Scotland. It takes into account the complex history of citizenship across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and suggests that relations across these islands will be amongst the main determinants of both the initial determination of the citizenry at the moment of independence and of citizenship policy in the future.

Keywords
Citizenship, Scotland, referendum, independence, nationality, international law, dual citizenship, devolution, secession

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2013/33

Contested terrain of sexual citizenship: EU accession and the changing position of sexual minorities in the post-Yugoslav context

Katja Kahlina

Abstract
The paper traces the transformation of sexual citizenship in the context of the European Union accession process in post-Yugoslav space. It focuses on the ways in which the tensions between nationalism and nation-building related to the disintegration of SFR Yugoslavia and transnational process of EU enlargement influence the changing position of sexual minorities in Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. While looking at the dynamic interplay between the competing visions of nation and national community, EU accession process, and the citizenship status of sexual minorities in these three states, the paper argues that, rather than representing an unambiguously liberating force, EU accession in the post-Yugoslav context has facilitated the turning of sexual citizenship into a contested terrain where struggles over Europeanness, liberal pluralism, and national identity take place

Keywords
Sexuality, citizenship, sexual minorities, national identity, EU accession, former Yugoslavia

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2013/32

War, Gender and Citizenship in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia

Oliwia Berdak

Abstract
This paper compares the position of veterans of the Yugoslav Wars 1991-1995 in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in order to explore the interaction between war, gender and citizenship. In many wars of the last two centuries, an expansion of rights frequently followed a conflict, although that process did not proceed uniformly or equally. The comparison of post-war compensation in BiH, Croatia and Serbia reveals highly varied and gendered outcomes for citizenship. The fragmented nature of the war and its armies has led to multiple narratives about the war, influencing subsequent claims for veteran entitlements. The results for veterans who all participated in the same conflict have been very different depending on which army they joined, and which war narrative prevailed in their place of residence. This war was masculinised in discourse and practice, creating gendered post-war social citizenship in the cases where the citizen-soldier has been rewarded.

Keywords
Citizenship, gender, war, military duty, compensation

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2013/31

Romani Minorities on the Margins of Post-Yugoslav Citizenship Regimes

Julija Sardelic

Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to map how Romani minorities were positioned in the context of post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes transformations and to observe possible trends throughout post-Yugoslav space regarding their positioning. The paper establishes that due to historical as well as contemporary hierarchical inclusions, many individuals identified as belonging to Romani minorities faced specific obstacles in access to citizenship in most Yugoslav states, where they de facto resided. Consequently, it gives an illustration of citizenship constellations in which many Romani individuals found themselves as non-citizens at their place of residence and usually without the status of legal alien with permanent residence as well as with ineffective citizenship of another post-Yugoslav state. Additionally, it also examines the hierarchical positioning of Romani individuals, who are citizens at their place of residence and, at least de iure, enjoy a certain scope of minority rights. Borrowing terms from postcolonial theory and following the latest developments in Romani studies, this paper argues that Romani minorities were caught in-between different processes of post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes transformation, and therefore cannot be considered as the ultimate Other, but as the post-Yugoslav Subaltern.

Keywords
Romani minorities, citizenship, post-Yugoslav states, statelessness, minority rights

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2013/30

Gendering Social Citizenship: Textile Workers in post-Yugoslav States

Chiara Bonfiglioli

Abstract
The paper analyses social citizenship in post-Yugoslav states from a gendered perspective. It explores the parallel transformations of citizenship regimes and gender regimes on the basis of the case study of the textile industry, a traditionally feminised industrial sector in which employment rates have significantly declined in the last twenty years. By comparing the cases of Leskovac (Serbia) and tip (Macedonia), the paper shows that transformations in social citizenship had profound implications when it comes to gender regimes. The overall deterioration of labour and welfare rights in the region had major consequences on womens position as workers and citizens, producing the demise of the working mother gender contract which existed during socialist times. The retraditionalisation of gender relations in the post-Yugoslav region, therefore, is not only a consequence of nationalist discourses, but is also a direct result of transformations in social citizenship which occurred during the post-socialist transition.

Keywords
Social citizenship, gender, textile workers, post-socialist transition, globalisation

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2013/29

Politics of Return, Inequality and Citizenship in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Biljana Djordjevic

Abstract
The paper argues that the right to return should be upheld as a political principle for mitigation of the boundary problem - who belongs to demos. Restoration of citizenship pursued through justified politics of return contributes to the democratic reconstitution of post-conflict societies. In the post-Yugoslav space, however, politics of return of refugees, internally displaced persons, diaspora, and deportspora can be charged with promoting some forms of citizenship inequality, preferring some citizens over others and impeding or effectively blocking the return of those thought undesirable.

Keywords
Boundary problem, right to return, politics of return, citizenship constellations, refugees, internally displaced persons, diaspora, deportspora, inequality, post-Yugoslav space

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