Ordinary Affects During the Democratization of Violence in the Context of the Breakup of Yugoslavia
Ordinary Affects During the Democratization of Violence in the Context of the Breakup of Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: In the paper, based on the analysis of ethnographic material, the author explains the emergence of ordinary affects during the breakup of Yugoslavia. He shows that the ordinary affects were unfolding amid social anomie created by the collapse of the Yugoslav state and the processes of ethnicization on the subnational level. One of the striking features of the processes of ethnicization was targeted violence against civilians or democratization of violence on a subnational level. To help understand the emergence of affective afflictions, the author supplements theories of cultural trauma and ethnicization with the concepts of situation and crisis embedded in the ordinary. Furthermore, he argues that this small theoretical supplement can help understand the persistence and unusually high presence of war rhetoric in some post-Yugoslav states.

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