Distinguishing ‘Self’ and ‘Other’: Anthropology and National Identity in Former Yugoslavia
Author(s)
Boskovic, Aleksandar
Abstract
As ethnologists/anthropologists have positioned themselves at the forefront of the ‘nation-building’ project in recent years, something needs to be said about the relationship of the Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian ethnological traditions to former Yugoslavia. Many Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian scholars take the view that ‘their nation’ has been unjustifiably victimized in recent years, and have taken it upon themselves, as the chosen interpreters of the ‘national culture’ to set the record straight. This paper examines evaluations of events in the Balkans between 1991 and 1999, highlighting the role of anthropologists (as well as social scientists in general) in the construction and consumption of such analyses. This paper ultimately deals with issues arising from the concepts of ‘auto-anthropology’ or ‘anthropology at home.’ My choice of the scholars is of course open to criticism, but I take them to be good representatives of the points of view I outline here, and hope that the discussion presented will permit a wider debate on native anthropology in the Balkans.