Carna Brkovic

Currently working on a research Between Compassion and Social Justice: Humanitarianism in Montenegro during and after the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)

Project description

This research project explores the relationship between humanitarianism and social justice as two forms of responding to wrongdoing and human suffering, using Montenegro as a case study. More specifically, it looks into the humanitarian activities of the Montenegrin Red Cross during the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). It also focuses on its contemporary programmes, especially the Red Cross management of a camp for displaced persons on the outskirts of Podgorica. Commonly described as ‘the largest refugee camp in the Balkans’ and informally called the ‘Shanty Town’, the camp provides housing for people who mostly identify as Roma, Ashkali, or Balkan Egyptians, the majority of whom fled from violence in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, or from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the 1991-1995 Yugoslav wars.

The research aims to offer an ethnographic and historical account of framing responsibility for others’ survival and wellbeing,

2016
Jansen, Stef. Čarna Brković. Vanja Čelebičić, eds. Negotiating Social Relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Semiperipheral Entanglements. New York: Routledge.

2016
Brković, Čarna. ‘Depoliticization "from Below": Everyday Humanitarianism in Bosnia and Herzegovina’. Narodna umjetnost: Special Issue on the 12th SIEF Congress 53(1): 97–115.

2016
Brković, Čarna. ‘Scaling Humanitarianism: Humanitarian Actions in a Bosnian Town’. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 81(1): 99-124.

2015
Brković, Čarna. ‘Management of Ambiguity. Favours and Flexibility in Bosnia and Herzegovina.’ Social Anthropology 23(3): 268–282.

2015
Brković, Čarna & Andrew Hodges. ‘Rethinking World Anthropologies Through Fieldwork. Perspectives on “Extended Stay” and “Back and Forth” Methodologies.’ Anthropological Notebooks 21(1): 107–120.

2014
Brković, Čarna. ‘Surviving in a Moveopticon: Humanitarian Actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.’ Contemporary Southeastern Europe 1(2): 42–60.