SECTION:
In/visible communities at and across border
Duška Knezevic Hocevar (Centre at Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts, Ljubljana)
Understandings of Border Regimes among Descendants of Uskoks at Slovenian-Croat state borderThe author will discuss the understandings of dis/continuity of border regimes among descendants of uskoks in Zumberacka krajina and Bela krajina along the Slovenian-Croat state border. Descendants of uskoks, medieval immigrants who defended the Austrian Empire against Ottoman army in Military Border Zone, found themselves in a specific predicament, particularly after the establishment of two sovereign nation-states in 1991. Those of Greek-Catholic and Orthodox creed, i.e. not of "pure Slovenian or Croat" provenance, were recognised as "suspicious" citizens by proponents of primordial notion of national population. Material gathered covers the locals' understandings of border regimes from Austrian Military border regime to coming Schengen regime, and of themselves as borderlanders. Locals' everyday practices (marriage strategies, households' organisation, migration, etc.) and self-ascriptions, which usually questioned such bounded entities and concomitant processes of inclusion and exclusion, will be discussed in some detail.
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