Seminar 29.11: Solidarity in Abandonment: The Local Communities Response to Refugee Influx in Serbia / Robert Rydzewski
24 listopada 2022 | Karolina Dziubata
We sincerely invite you to the next scientific seminar of the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań! Tuesday (Nov. 29) at 09:30-11:00, room 2.122.
TEAMS: https://tinyurl.com/pe5d2rch
ROBERT RYDZEWSKI
Solidarity in Abandonment: The Local Communities Response to Refugee Influx in Serbia
In this presentation, I examine the impact of incoming migrants, NGO workers and the appearance of the refugee camps in local landscapes on the local communities. Building on ethnographic observation and unstructured interviews with the inhabitants of Preševo, who have gone through ethnic conflicts, difficult post-Yugoslav transformation, migration and exile themselves, I examine the experience of the local communities of Preševo of the utter chaos of liminality caused by the so-called long summer of migration. I ponder here whether someone’s own humiliation and emigration experience might provoke empathy with other marginalised border-crossers. I show that in the space of disorder and confusion, not only solidarity but also new work opportunities and international attention to a neglected community appeared. I describe local community ambiguous humanitarian and entrepreneur attitude towards passing population and the state reaction to it. I analyse these practices within a context of the inflation of the ex-Yugoslav states’ position in the hierarchy of international mobility regimes and based on ethnic conflicts national politics, that have contributed to the feeling of state negligence, marginalization, and disenchantment.
BIO
Robert Rydzewski: antropolog społeczny, badacz migracji, adiunkt w Instytucie Antropologii i Etnologii na Uniwersytecie Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, członek Centrum Badań Migracyjnych UAM. W 2020 obronił doktorat pt. „Kryzys uchodźczy” – antropologiczne studium przypadku serbskiej części zachodnia szlaku bałkańskiego. Wolontariusz w organizacjach pro-migranckich.