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Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie
Published in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 4/2016

01-12-2016 | Hauptbeiträge

New international borders – old social spaces: Transnational migrant networks across the boundaries of post-socialist Croatia

Authors: Saša Božić, Simona Kuti

Published in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie | Issue 4/2016

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Abstract

The dissolution of Yugoslavia resulted in the emergence of new national containers, new international borders, pervasive politics of belonging and the political exclusion of a significant part of the population. New state-building and new citizenships made prewar migration within the Republics of former Yugoslavia socially and politically “visible” by producing new “aliens” and “international” migrant groups. Due to methodological nationalism, the social sciences neglected the social ties and networks between migrants in their countries of immigration and across former Yugoslavia in general, while a new transnational turn in migration research in the West produced an approach which overlooks migrant social spaces across and especially within internal borders before the emergence of new nation-states. Therefore the aim of this paper is to discuss a neglected social phenomenon – the development of the transnational social spaces of migrants across Central and Southeast Europe, using the example of migrant social ties beyond Croatian borders. We represent the emergence of migrant pluri-local social spaces and later transnational social spaces across Croatian borders and discuss processes which enabled their formation and expansion.
previous article A preferred workforce? Employment practices of East–West cross-border labour commuters in the Central European Region
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Footnotes
1
Although the term “methodological nationalism” was invented and discussed already in the 1970s (Martins 1974 in Chernillo 2007) the contemporary discussion about the reification of “national societies” in the social sciences (re)started at the beginning of the 21st century (e. g. Beck 2000, Urry 2000), due to increased visibility of new ties and transactions beyond nation-states. The consequences of “methodological nationalism” are particularly salient in migration studies (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003; Kuti and Božić 2011a) where a transnational perspective developed as an alternative.
 
2
The concept of “pluri-local social spaces” has been used by Ludger Pries (2001) in order to emphasise the possibility of their national vs. transnational dynamic.
 
3
E. g. Ottoman Turks and Albanians after the establishment of the Serbian state leaving Central Serbia (Malcolm 1999); more than 100,000 Hungarians, Italians, Czechs, Germans and others leaving Croatia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes after WWI (Nejašmić 1990, p. 517).
 
4
After the introduction of a new constitution in 1974, the autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo within Serbia were also enabled to develop state-like institutional frameworks which facilitated Albanian demands for a seventh republic within SFRY and fostered the development of a new national society.
 
5
Many other communist ruled countries, particularly the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria and Romania had relatively low internal migration rates (Fallenbuchl 1977, p. 325).
 
6
Samoupravne interesne zajednice (SIZ) in Croatian.
 
7
The unemployment rate rose from 5.5 in the early sixties to 8 per cent in the early seventies and it continued to rise by the beginning of the eighties, mainly due to the slowing down of emigration and the integration of the Yugoslav workforce in the West after the oil crisis in the early seventies (Tyson 1980).
 
8
From 1968 till 1981, 293,000 inhabitants of Croatia emigrated temporarily or permanently to European destinations (Nejašmić 1990, p. 522) and the net emigration from 1948 till 1981 was 354,200 persons (Nejašmić, 1990 p. 523).
 
9
According to some estimates, no more than 20% of all Yugoslav “Guest workers” actually returned to former Yugoslavia (Schierup 1990).
 
10
The wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo temporarily cut off many ties across the borders of former Yugoslav political entities, but also reinforced the networks of support on micro and meso levels enabling many families and local communities to survive the hardships of war and economic decline.
 
11
The data acquired by Božić, Burić and Kuti in 2013 confirmed the growth of Croatia’s migration potential following Croatia’s accession to the EU.
 
12
According to data obtained by Božić, Burić and Kuti in 2013 on Croatia’s contemporary migration potential Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand are still among the top destinations of Croatian migrants, yet the role of transnational migrant networks overseas plays a smaller role in relocating and settling than in EU countries. Migrating overseas is more of an individual endeavour than migrating to European countries because they are traversed with Croatian migrant networks.
 
13
Facebook is especially popular among young emigrants and potential emigrants. It gives a platform for building support groups and networks which provide information on where and how to emigrate, how to utilise legal arrangements and how to integrate, but it also gives direct social and legal support upon arrival.
 
14
The interviews were transcribed verbatim, sequentially coded combining deductive and inductive coding techniques, and analysed using MAXQDA 2007 software.
 
15
Official immigration records do not include more specific information on ethnic affiliation, which can be interpreted as another instance of methodological nationalism, implicitly presupposing majority national affiliation to all ethnic groups.
 
16
Only extreme political situations like the geopolitical isolation of former Yugoslavia in the late 1940s and the beginning of 1950s might cut off social ties and economic flows over the borders.
 
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Metadata
Title
New international borders – old social spaces: Transnational migrant networks across the boundaries of post-socialist Croatia
Authors
Saša Božić
Simona Kuti
Publication date
01-12-2016
Publisher
Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Published in
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie / Issue 4/2016
Print ISSN: 1011-0070
Electronic ISSN: 1862-2585
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11614-016-0246-2

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