Podrijetlo ratnog veterana: Sukobi, srodnosti i (ponovna) slaganja transnacionalnih identiteta na post-jugoslavenskom prostoru
Origins of a Veteran: Combat, commonality and (re)constituting transnational identities in the Post-Yugoslav space

Summary/Abstract: This paper contributes to discussions of Serbs and Croats in regional and global contexts by examining the methods and realizations of ethnographic engagement with war veterans living today in Southeast Europe/former Yugoslavia. By centering veterans of the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, this research expands discursive and methodological frames that act to more holistically project veteran problems and potentials into socio-academic considerations. Furthermore, it works to bring aspects of veterans studies into conversation with one another while also positioning Serbian and Croatian veterans as active contributors to emerging transnational studies of war veterans. As such, this work is both an agenda-setting piece as well as a work of conceptual scoping that builds from the argument that the socially-constructed identity of “veteran” is one that has been overlooked or ignored by researchers examining post-war relations. Recognizing this state-of-affairs, this work moves first through a methodological discussion of veteran engagement via ethnographic fieldwork in SEE/FY. The second section then opens a discussion of select concepts that offer – based on encountered veteran narratives and perspectives – new ways of considering and understanding veteran lifeworlds. The paper concludes by noting how enhanced understandings of veteran post-war relations can influence participation with realms such as memory activism and peacebuilding – in the post-Yugoslav space and beyond.

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