Paper short abstract:

By following Adorno’s (1970) argument that art is always contingent and rooted in the social conditions of the system where it emerges, this paper foregrounds the art’s critical role in producing and disseminating the ideologies of “multiculturalism” and “national archaism” in contemporary Macedonia. While arguing that these are mutually constitutive processes, I examine the two most important art festivals in the country: the Ohrid Summer Festival and the Struga Poetry Evenings.

Paper long abstract:

By following Adorno's (1970) argument that art is always contingent and rooted in the social conditions of the system where it emerges, this paper foregrounds the art's critical role in producing and disseminating the ideologies of "multiculturalism" and "national archaism" in contemporary Macedonia. While arguing that these are mutually constitutive processes, I examine the two most important art festivals in the country: the Ohrid Summer Festival and the Struga Poetry Evenings. Staged for the first time in 1961, the Ohrid Summer Festival has become one of the most prominent high art festivals featuring best artists from the world. This year's 46th edition of the Ohrid Summer Festival stressed the "biblical" and the Christian character of Ohrid and Macedonia by drawing primarily on its Christian legacy representing it as "a town of 365 churches," thus silencing the presence of Islam in the town and the country. The Struga Poetry Festival (considered as one of the most important poetry festivals in the world recognized by UNESCO) in 2007 was marked by a visible presence of Albanian politicians who stressed the numerical dominance of Albanians in Struga by opening the festival first in Albanian language. By analyzing these two festivals, I maintain that art is not only rooted in the social conditions but it becomes the battleground where the ideologies of inclusion and exclusion are produced and disseminated in the wider political and popular discourses of the Macedonia.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the regular press conferences held by the embassies of the EU, the USA, NATO and the OSCE affected domestic constructions and contestations of political authority in the Macedonian public sphere.

Paper long abstract:

After the 2001 conflict that had threatened the Republic of Macedonia with civil war, political discourse in the country quickly re-oriented toward the goals of Euro-Atlantic integration with hopes of eventual NATO and EU membership. By 2003, the concern over "Eurointegration" had come to permeate the Macedonian public sphere, and the figure of "Europe" acted as an authorizing center for much political oratory, media commentary, and everyday criticism of politics. However, a relic of conflict-time diplomacy—the bi-weekly, joint press conference of the embassies of the EU, the USA, NATO and the OSCE—institutionalized a very different "European" voice within the Macedonian public sphere. Through these press conferences, the spokespersons of these organizations variously commented on and evaluated current events and political initiatives in Macedonia, espousing such platitudes of Eurointegration as the need for more reform, more transparency, and more accountability, to the frequent chagrin of domestic actors. Indeed, the very salience of the discourse of Eurointegration allowed the spokespersons to engage the publicity of the press conferences as a political tool to send explicit and implicit messages to political factions in Macedonia. Focusing on these complex, multiply-addressed messages and their uptake by Macedonian politicians and media commentators, this paper examines how such regular "international interventions" into the Macedonian public sphere affected domestic constructions and contestations of political authority.

Paper short abstract:

The paper is dealing with socially marginalized groups in Macedonia. Focus is on most-at-risk adolescents on HIV/AIDS/SPI (man having sex with man, adolescents offering sex and adolescents injecting drugs)aiming to explore their locations, behaviours, social contexts in Macedonia, especially related to the social and cultural determined situations which reflect on their risk behavior on HIV/AIDS/SPI.

Paper long abstract:

The main target group in the research are the most at-risk adolescents (MARA) to HIV/AIDS and STIs in Macedonia at the age of 13 to 18. Having in mind the specifics of the target group which belongs in the so-called hard-to-reach target groups, in our case due to the social and cultural context that the research took place in R. Macedonia.

I. In the mapping and the community based research study, the following sub-categories of MARA to HIV/AIDS/STIs in Macedonia were involved:

a. adolescent males that have sex with men (MSM), with a special emphasis in the research to those adolescents who have unprotected sex with men;

b. adolescent males and females who sell sex (AWSS);

c. adolescents injecting drug users (AID).

The basic aims of the mapping and the community based research study for MARA to HIV/AIDS/STIs in Macedonia are:

1. To discover information of existence of MARA and describe their locations, behaviours, social context and the problems they face.

a. To locate different MARA sub-groups and collect information for their experiences at individual level, at community level and structural level with information from the community itself.

2. To design more case studies that will show how the legal regulation, police activities or current social context hinder the optimal use of the services for MARA.

a. To analyse the information gathered from MARA that reflect all the factors influencing their individual risky behaviour, as well as the risky behaviour at a community level, related to the structural factors.

Paper short abstract:

This paper questions how processes of Europeanisation and the implications of European integration are envisioned from different local perspectives and how they shape localised notions of the 'nation-state' and regional belonging.

Paper long abstract:

In the introduction to the second sessions of this panel we will explore how processes of Europeanisation and the implications of European integration are envisioned from different local perspectives and how they shape localised notions of the 'nation-state' as well as regional belonging. Periods of political transformation in the post-socialist countries are often initiated or accompanied by re-naming and/or removal of symbols of the previous era, such as the re-naming of public places as well as dismantling of statues, memorials or walls (Verdery 1999). On the one hand such commemorative impositions on people's lived-in surroundings involve monuments, memorials and naming of public spaces. On the other hand they also entail previously silenced narratives from the socialist past and/or salient accounts of an ancient past. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in post-war rural Croatia and in Himarë/Himara in Southern Albania, we observe that the fall of socialist systems is marked by a general reversion to an ancient past in which the country's nationalist ideals are believed to be grounded. This reversion, however, can take various shapes and its influence on notions of regional belonging ranges from eager aspiration towards Europe to severe Euroscepticism. We will address the following questions: how do people locate and represent themselves in the view of geographically, politically and historically shifting frontiers? In what sense do geo-political maps shape people's practices and perceptions of 'their' place? What are the implications of supra-regional and supra-national changes for local discourses of nostalgia and (be)longing? What kind of power struggles are involved in the rethinking of notions of European-ness? What role do mobility and economic change play in these processes?

Paper short abstract:

Based on data collected on the Greek-Albanian border, my paper addresses the issue of the transformation of Albanian borders since 1991. It is an attempt to understand how local inhabitants are reacting to this transformation. It also seeks to understand in what way it calls for the mobilisation of new resources and representations by local people.

Paper long abstract:

Based on data collected on the Greek-Albanian border, my paper addresses the issue of the transformation of Albanian borders since 1991. After a long period of confinement within their nation state, Albanians have experienced the 'opening' of Albania's borders and started to migrate towards Greece and Italy. It however soon became clear that European borders were not 'open' and that, on the contrary, they imposed limitations on crossings by Albanians.

In the borderlands of Southern Albania, from where people attempt to go to Greece, other processes of boundary making have occurred, in relation with Greek migration policy. Albanian citizens belonging to the Greek minority in Albania enjoy a privileged access to Greek labour market, welfare and citizenship, while Muslims are faced with difficulties to get visas and cross the border, and, once in Greece, with racism and discrimination. Between those two extreme categories other groups are locally known in relation with the border, which, from a 'wall' preventing people from escaping during communist times, has now become a 'filter', allowing only certain categories of people to cross on the other side.

By looking at daily life and individual practices in the borderland, my paper is an attempt to understand how local inhabitants react to the transformation of the border. It also seeks to understand in what way this transformation calls for the mobilisation of new resources and representations. It emphasizes the plurality of practices of the border as well as the different levels at which people experience the border.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation will deal with the problem of the changing local/global dimensions of Lithuanian national identity under the conditions of globalization, after the country's accession to the European Union and in particular vis-à-vis nation-wide emigration pattern.

Paper long abstract:

The presentation will deal with the problem of the changing local/global dimensions of Lithuanian identity under the conditions of globalization, after the country's accession to the European Union and in particular vis-à-vis nation-wide emigration pattern.

It is based on findings of the national research project on national identity under conditions of globalization, conducted in 2005-2007 in Lithuania.

The theoretical framework of the report is based on theoretical assumptions which criticize the dichotomy ethnic/civic as providing reliable platform for defining of the markers of national identity. It proposes instead to focus on the description of the dimensions of openness/closeness which could be identified via analysis of the narratives on "we-ness"/ "foreign-ness" and legal possibilities for "becoming local".

Two types of narratives on globalized vs. local (Lithuanian) culture revealed by the research are explored in the paper: narratives that make clean-cut distinction between local/native and global/foreign culture and narratives that vindicate incorporation of global life styles to Lithuanian one. In the narratives of the first type the assessment of cultural phenomena as either local/native or global/foreign was made with the help of elements of Lithuanian ethnic culture as the main criterion. Narratives of the second type are those that "legitimize" the incorporation of global culture and life styles into Lithuanian culture. Two versions of such "legitimizing" narratives were revealed: The first is based on an expanded understanding of the concept of "local". "Local" includes "global", because "global" does not mean "foreign", but just something that exists everywhere. "Global" is understood as global/native or just as native. The second version of the "legitimization" of cultural globalization focuses upon the "Lithuanianization" of ways of consumption by ascribing to them a spiritual, intangible Lithuanianness. The most important criterion now becomes "how" (in a Lithuanian or non-Lithuanian way of doing or consuming something) instead of "what" (is being consumed).

Changing social and cultural experiences and every day life practices of Lithuanian people do change meanings of "we-ness"/ "foreign-ness" which imply re-definition of markers and re-conceptualization of the Lithuanianness. Although 'taken for granted' nation -ness in ethno-nationalist terms remains the main marker of Lithuanianness, positive attitudes and emotions as well as extended loyalty towards the state plays a very important role as well. It reduces the importance of ethnic ties and in-acts the dimensions of closeness and openness onto shaping of the national identity.

Paper short abstract:

My paper addresses how consequences of war and processes of European integration converge in the figure of the displaced person – especially in light of Kosovo’s independence – and in turn what this means for the displaced, citizens of Serbia, the Serbian state, and the EU.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyzes how displaced persons in Serbia affect local, national, and international politics through narratives of displacement, and how this plays a significant role in reinvigorating nationalist politics that presents challenges to European integration. It explores how displacement opens up spaces for interpretation and contestation at individual, local, and national levels of society, and measures how Serbian politics are shaped by the interaction between displaced persons with local citizens, particularly members of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party. Specifically, the paper addresses how "Europe" is envisioned and constructed in greater Belgrade through the prism of changed borders, thousands of displaced persons, and an independent Kosovo. Moreover it asks how do displaced and non-displaced persons situate and represent themselves vis-à-vis these changes?

Because the political and social crisis facing Serbia today "reflects a long history of conflict and ambiguity about its place in Europe" (Emmert 2003:177), this paper explores how displaced persons negotiate the dialectics of border zones between the local and the translocal and how they interact in their new settings to influence politics and shape society. Although the former Yugoslav republic was based on a concept of ideological uniformity and national inclusion, the successor states were based largely on ethnonational exclusion with their corollary borders. In Serbia, geo-political maps and borders have always profoundly shaped people's practices and their perceptions of place; this then is a key area for rethinking European integration, the nation-state, nationalism, refugees, and the significance of the politics of inclusion and exclusion in everyday life.

Paper short abstract:

My presentation at the EASA conference is intended to be a work-in-progress report of the post-doctoral research project on “The iconography of memories in contemporary Estonia and Slovenia” which focuses more on the Estonian side of the comparison (using the Bronze Soldier incident as focal point) while drawing interesting parallels with the Slovenian situation.

Paper long abstract:

This research aims to develop a comparative perspective on the legacy of war and post-war memories in post-Soviet Estonia and post-socialist Slovenia. Concentrating on urban sites of contested memory, the research aims 1) to establish the differences in the historical cultures of a post-socialist and post-Soviet country at the example of Slovenia and Estonia. 2) to shed light on the dynamic interrelation between city and identity and to explore how specific urban experiences sustain a sense of identity through times of social-political rupture. 3) to illustrate whose version of the past is represented and pronounced in the city architecture and whose sites of memory were displaced or erased after 1945 /1991. As most recently illustrated by the social riots surrounding the removal of the Bronze Solder in Tallinn, urban sites of memory can become contested terrain for different societal groups. These competing groups use the public space to rally for the official recognition of their specific interpretation of the past and different identity narratives deriving from them. The Bronze Soldier serves as a focal point at which different interpretative frameworks of understanding WWII clash. I contextualise the recent course of events surrounding the relocation of the Bronze Solider by considering the spatial context of this Soviet era lieux de memoire in Tallinn's cityscape and by discussing it in relation to various important landmarks of contemporary Estonian historical culture. Concentrating on urban cultural practices I pay attention to the significance that each of the competing group memories attribute to the site.