Construction of Ethnic Belonging in the Context of Former Yugoslavia—the Case of a Migrant from Bosnia-Herzegovina

Authors

  • Sonja Grün

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-10.3.1374

Keywords:

migration, Bosnia-Herzegovina, biographical research, constructions, sense of ethnic belonging

Abstract

This article deals with the question of the change and continuity of ethnic and national constructs of belonging in the context of former Yugoslavia with special emphasis on Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am taking a biographical analytical approach. This allows me to reconstruct the process of the development and transformation, as well as the continuity of ethnic and national constructs of belonging. Moreover, this approach also allows an analysis of these phenomena in their genesis. Based on a case study, it will be demonstrated how ethnic and national belongings developed, how they changed, and how under some circumstances they exhibit a certain continuity. In doing so, the interplay between the past and the present as well as the intra-biographical and societal developments were analyzed. I came to the conclusion that the biographer formed a supra-ethnical Yugoslavian construct of belonging which was maintained despite the migration experience. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0903226

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Author Biography

Sonja Grün

Sonja GRÜN studied political sciences and anthropology at Göttingen University and wrote her Master's thesis "Ethnic and National Belongings of Migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Germany. A Biographical Case Study" under the supervision of Dr. Renate BITZAN and Prof. Dr. Gabriele ROSENTHAL. Currently she is preparing to write a dissertation on "Women and Civil Society in Afghanistan." With that regard, she is interviewing Afghan women who are volunteers organizing medical and humanitarian aid for their country.

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Published

2009-09-29

How to Cite

Grün, S. (2009). Construction of Ethnic Belonging in the Context of Former Yugoslavia—the Case of a Migrant from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-10.3.1374