Preliminary communication
COMING "HOME": IDENTITY AND PLACE IN POST WAR CROATIA*
Amy Mountcastle
; State Univerity of New York, U.S.A.
Dona Danon
; University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The authors explore the concept of home and the problematics of
"returning home" in the post-war context of multi-ethnic villages in
eastern Croatia. The authors argue that ruptures in social identity are
articulated in ideas and sentiments about "home". One of the primary
questions asked is to what extent the ethno-nationalist discourses of
the state and international media enter into the reconstitution of
home and social identity. Home, for villagers attempting to
reconstruct their lives after the war, is a shifting concept that is tied
to the re-negotiation of the war-ruptured social identity space. At
present, it seems to point more often to what is missing in home and
community life than to what has been recovered. For many,
displacement and dislocation have occurred not only at the physical
level, but also at the cognitive level. Therefore, "going home"
entails much more than returning to a place and addressing material
needs. It requires a cognitive reorientation.
Keywords
displaced persons; return and repatriation; identity; ethnicity; home; Baranya; Croatian Danube Region
Hrčak ID:
33376
URI
Publication date:
4.6.2001.
Visits: 1.711 *