Peace psychology in the Balkans: in times past, present and future

This chapter provides an overview of the contributions that Peace Psychologists have made to the understanding of confl ict and peace in the Balkan region. The recent history of physical violence in Balkan nations, such as Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Romania, make this an important area of analysis given its potential to broaden our understanding of peace and confl ict processes world-wide. The analysis provided in this chapter is multi-directional in its consideration of past, present and future realities. Explanations for the history of confl ict in the region are identifi ed, the present realities of peace and confl ict explored and pathways to a more peaceful future proposed. The analysis is also multi-faceted considering both micro-level and macro-level factors relevant to the history and future of peace in the region. Micro-level factors, such as social norms, individual attitudes and relations to other ethnic groups, are shown to have complex interactions with macro-level factors, such as politics and economics, in predicting both peace and violence in the Balkan region. The analysis is relevant to academic disciplines as diverse as peace studies, politics and sociology, but remains fi rmly embedded within a peace psychological framework

Former Yugoslavia on the world wide web: Commercialization and branding of nation-states

Since the violent collapse of former Yugoslavia, the ‘new’ nation-states of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia have attempted to position themselves on the global map while seeking to create a distinctive ‘brand’ (national) identity. Drawing on a textual analysis of their official governmental websites, this article explores how these former Yugoslav states use the Internet to create and represent self-images for the world. The governmental websites analysed frame the nation as a ‘brand’ in that they employ advertising mechanisms to promote and sell their nations. Websites represent national territories, histories, products and citizens as commodities that can be sold to foreign investors and tourists. In this way, the former Yugoslav countries are transformed into brand-states that serve the function of relegating their citizens to the role of either exotic Others ready to be consumed by rich western tourists, or goods for foreign investment

"In Europe it's Different": Homonationalism and Peripheral Desires for Europe

The term \u2018homonationalism\u2019 has been coined to designate the assimilation of homosexuality by Western nationalist projects (Puar 2007). First appearing in the US context, the term has been taken up in Europe to criticize the deployment of progressive sexual imaginaries in anti-immigration politics, particularly in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Yet, a question remains open as to how we shall conceptualize this phenomenon on the European scale; that is, how to think of European homonationalism. This chapter suggests a way of understanding homonationalism as a European phenomenon by taking the case of Italy as an entry point. Through the analysis of legal, political and cultural texts (including LGBT activist discourses), the chapter elucidates the divide between \u2018progressive\u2019 Europe and \u2018backward\u2019 Italy, illustrating how Europe is produced at its Southern borders as a site of sexual exceptionalism

The Unbearable Closeness of The East: Embodied Micro-Economies of Difference, Belonging, and Intersecting Marginalities in Post-Socialist Berlin

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Urban Geography on 11 Apr 2013, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02723638.2013.778630This article examines micro-politics of belonging in the post-socialist outskirts of Berlin- Marzahn, one of new urban immigrant settlement areas in Europe. More specifically, it focuses on what locals perceive as an acceptance-precluding conspicuous presence of nominally white immigrants of German ancestry from the former Soviet Union, the Aussiedler (resettlers). Thus the paper outlines how long-term residents read and interpret these immigrants’ everyday embodiments, constructing what I call micro-economies of embodied difference, in order to mark the latter as Eastern-European and thus non-belonging. In order to make sense of such practices, the article examines the embeddedness of this suburban locality in extra-local politics of belonging, showing how Marzahn and its old-time residents have themselves become postwall Berlin’s (and Germany’s) internal Others, saturated with uncommodifiable traces of now denigrated state-socialist Easternness. I suggest that in such a context these residents’ practice of ascription of the unwanted Easternness to recent immigrants works to deflect it in order to buttress their own claims to full membership citizenship in the unified Germany they feel they have been excluded from so far