Enemy Minority: Negotiating Ethnic Difference in Post-War Vukovar

Abstract

This dissertation explores the experience of Croatian Serbs in the post-conflict context of Vukovar, focusing on how they navigate their identities as a marginalized "enemy minority" within the Croatian nation-state. Through an ethnographic lens, the research investigates the complex and often contradictory ways in which individuals and institutions within the Serb community perform, negotiate, and reconstruct their identities, shaped by both the legacies of violence and the dominant Croatian national narrative surrounding the Serb community. Drawing on concepts such as ontological security, spatial governmentality, and the continuum of violence, the thesis examines how inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic tensions manifest in everyday life, influencing social dynamics and the broader processes of belonging and exclusion. By exploring key themes such as memory, language practices, youth violence, gender regimes in nationalism, and minority subject formation, this dissertation reveals the ways in which the Serb community in Vukovar both resists and perpetuates the dominant ethnic divisions of post-conflict Croatian society.

The research employs a combination of qualitative methods, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews, to examine how Serbs in Vukovar cope with their stigmatized ethnic identity. The thesis argues that while the Serb community is politically disempowered, it remains a significant presence within the national discourse, continually framed as the "Other". The dissertation introduces the concept of "enemy minority", a category distinct from other minority groups, where difference is perceived as a threat to the nation-state's ontological security. This theoretical framework allows for a nuanced understanding of how certain minorities, particularly those with histories of inter-ethnic violence, negotiate their place in a post-conflict society.

The five chapters of this dissertation explore distinct yet interconnected aspects of Serb life in Vukovar: the politics of memory and commemoration, linguistic practices and boundary-making, the role of minority education in reinforcing national narratives, the gendered regimes of ethnic divisions, and alternative conceptions of citizenship and the future. In doing so, it underscores the complexity and fluidity of ethnic identity in post-Yugoslav Croatia, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the diverse and contested ways in which Serbs live with their "enemy" status. Through this lens, the dissertation contributes to broader discussions on nationalism, minority rights, post-socialism, and the politics of belonging in the contemporary European context.