Bosnian Refugees in Chicago: Gender, Performance, and Post-War Economies

(Paperback)

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Bosnian Refugees in Chicago: Gender, Performance, and Post-War Economies studies refugee migration through the experiences of survivors of the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia as they rebuild home, family, and social lives in the wake of their displacement. Ana Croegaert explores post-1970s Yugoslav-era socialism, American neoliberal capitalism, and anti-Muslim geopolitics to examine womens varied perspectives on their postwar lives in the United States. Based on more than a decade of fieldwork, Croegaert takes readers into staged performances, coffee rituals, protests, memorials, homes, and non-governmental organizations to shine a light on the pressures women contend with in their efforts to make a living and to narrate their wartime injuries. Ultimately, Croegaert argues that refugee women insist on understanding their wartime losses as simultaneously social and material, a form of personhood she labels injured life. At a time of mass displacement and heated political debates concerning refugees, Croegaert provides an engaging portrait of a lively and diverse group of women whose opinions on citizenship and belonging are needed now more than ever.

Reviews

Ana Croegaerts Bosnian Refugees in Chicago: Gender, Performance, and Post-War Economies provides a rich, multi-faceted portrait of Bosnian refugee life in early 21^st century Chicago. It documents individuals struggles to come to terms with the injuries of war, ethnic violence, and displacement in the former Yugoslavia, focusing in particular on womens efforts to create domesticity and social connection. Drawing on intimate observations and interviews in homes, coffee shops and public spaces, as well as analysis of social media, public events, and artistic expression, Bosnian Refugees in Chicago provides a deeply moving and politically astute account of the refugee experience in an era of austerity politics and heightened racial tension in the United States. -- Jane Collins, University of Wisconsin

This book should prove accessible and engaging to broader audiencesperhaps especially for 1.5- and second-generation Bosnian Americans and those who have become intertwined in our familiesas well as specialists in diaspora studies, U.S. refugee resettlement, human rights, and whiteness studies.

This book is a welcome and valuable contribution to the literature on Bosnian and other Balkan diasporas and to broader diaspora studies. It will appeal to social and cultural anthropologists, economic anthropologists, scholars of migration and diaspora, and scholars specializing in the region as well as to members of the Bosnian diaspora in the United States.

Author Bio

Ana Croegaert is a research affiliate at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago