Original scientific paper

Smelting hope: environment, humanities, and dissent in Serbia

Milica Prokić ; University of Strathclyde

Abstract

This paper offers several interconnected strands of inquiry which define the difficult and contested, however strong and intimate relationships of the people and the environment in Serbia. The first is the inextricable entanglement of war and material environment. The second is people’s perceptions of and relations to the pollution (biophysical and political), and the long history of dissent framed around ecological issues in the country. The third is environmental impacts on Serbia as one of the middle and low- income countries subjected to various local and international extractive interests, and the scholarship engaging with these dynamic relations. The fourth is the call for attention to the history of environmental humanities discourse in Serbia, which builds on an important albeit internationally overlooked scholarly tradition, the aspects of which were instrumental in the development of scholarship in the field internationally. By bringing these threads together, this paper calls for further in-depth study of each of these themes. In this context the paper touches on eventful relationships between environmental movements, academic community, and the wider public.

Keywords

Serbia, wasteocene, profit, ecocide, dissent, protest, extraction, neocolonialisim, European periphery, environmental humanities

Hrčak ID:

344806

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/344806

Publication date:

19.12.2024.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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