Yugoslavian phantom identity

• Název práce v češtině: Jugoslávská fantomová identita
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Yugoslavian phantom identity
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Yugoslavia, common identity, post-Yugoslavs, popular culture, collective memory, emigrants, nation(alism)
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2021/2022
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Katedra sociologie (23-KS)
• Vedoucí / školitel: doc. Mgr. Martin Hájek, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 11.04.2022
• Datum zadání: 11.04.2022
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 24.06.2024 09:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Areál Jinonice, B228, 228, seminární místnost ISS
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 14.04.2024
• Oponenti: Mgr. Barbora Spalová, Ph.D.

Seznam odborné literatury

Bischoping, K., & Gazso, A. (2016). Analyzing talk in the social sciences. SAGE Publications Ltd. doi:10.4135/9781473965454

Fabry, M. (2016, January). Unrecognized States and National Identity. Annual of Language and Politics and Politics of Identity 10(1):19-30.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315614373_Unrecognized_States_and_National_Identity

Hájek, Martin, Dlouhá, Marie. (2014). “Interpretative Cooperation with Biographical Texts: A Semiotic Approach to Analyzing Collective Memory.“ Memory Studies 7 (2): 207–222.

Henig, D. (2020). ​Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. University of Illinois Press.

Kansteiner, W. (2002). “Finding meaning in memory—a methodological critique of collective memory studies.” History and Theory 41(2): 179–197.

Mandler, P. (2006). What is “national identity”? Definitions and applications in modern British historiography. Modern Intellectual History, 3(2), 271-297. doi:10.1017/S1479244306000746

Mayo Clinic. (n.d). Phantom pain. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/phantom-pain/symptoms-causes/syc-20376272

Pehe, V. (2016, June 26). Socialism Remembered: Cultural Nostalgia, Retro, and the Politics of the Past in the Czech Republic,1989-2014. [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University College London.
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1502115/1/Thesis%20Pehe%2026.6.16.pdf

Ramm, B. (2017, May 16). A passport from a country that doesn’t exist. BBC Culture. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170515-a-passport-from-a-country-that-doesnt-exist

Stiks, I. (2018). "Brothers United: The Making of Yugoslavs." Nations and Citizens in Yugoslavia and the Post-Yugoslav States: One Hundred Years of Citizenship: 25-36. Bloomsbury Academic London. doi:10.5040/9781474221559.ch-002

Tomic, D. (2014). From "Yugoslavism" to (Post-)Yugoslav Nationalisms: Understanding Yugoslav Identities. European National Identities: Elements, Transitions, Conflicts: 271-292. Transaction Publishers. doi:10.4324/9781351296489-15

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

The research topic of this diploma thesis relies on the notion of the condition known as “phantom pain” in medicine. Definition found on the website of Mayo Clinic states that “phantom pain is pain that feels like it's coming from a body part that's no longer there. Doctors once believed this post-amputation phenomenon was a psychological problem, but experts now recognize that these real sensations originate in the spinal cord and brain.” (Mayo Clinic, n.d.).

The purpose of the diploma thesis is to explore the idea of “phantom identity”, identity that former residents of the country that does not exist anymore - Yugoslavia - might recognize or display as theirs. Addressing the socio-psychological theories which claim that (national) identity depends on recognition from the outside, Fabry writes that while: “recognition may be the central external goal of claimants of statehood… non-recognition fosters national identity to a much greater degree than recognition.” (Fabry, 2016). This diploma work will attempt to discover whether the common identity of the former common state can be found with its former nationals now that the country does not exist anymore. Furthermore, the work aims to determine if there might be such a common identity, or elements of it, that manifest only (and in specific ways) when these individuals are together, usually in the context of social activities.

Focus of the thesis
The research and thesis will examine the hypothesized common identity within the population of citizens of former Yugoslavia, who left the territory after 1990, and nowadays live on the territory of Czech Republic, more specifically, Prague or Brno. The individuals in the target group are people born while the country existed, and they spent some part of their childhood in the former country. They were thus exposed to certain cultural content directly, or indirectly, through their parents and/or later reflection on the culture (especially film and music) of the former joint country.

Defining the identity
For the purpose of this work, the identity will be defined and observed as expressing specific cultural references, or rather, the way in which specific “documents of memory” are received within the target population. The examples of this are the films cited when individuals who belong to the defined target group are together, or music they listen to, and recognize as “their”, essentially, shared experience of medialized interpretation (see Kansteiner, 2002). It is important to note that most of the languages spoken amongst the individuals are almost identical, or at least perfectly understandable regardless of whether respondents are from one or the other post-Yugoslavian state, e.g. Serbia, Croatia, or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In her doctoral thesis, Pehe writes that her “project’s wider relevance beyond its immediate regional context is a contribution to the understanding of how popular culture and its circulation in the public sphere acts as one of the major structuring forces of collective memory and uncovers the different political agendas to which this memory is harnessed” (Pehe, 2016). However, while this diploma work is interested in popular culture and its role in structuring / defining the collective memory, the focus is on the identity and personal reflection on popular culture, thus internalized ideas about the popular culture rather than how the representations in the public sphere influence political agendas and other.
The definition of identity here draws “on the latest social-psychological and sociological thinking about what actually goes on inside people’s minds in the construction of “identity” - the self-concept - and of various kinds of “collective identity”, including the national kind” (Mandler, 2006). This self-concept will be explored through the relationship towards the specific set of cultural products, relationship towards the others who know about and/or understand those cultural products (in a similar way?), and finally, in exploring whether or not there is modification in “self-concept” in presence of other individuals from the same group or in relation to them.

Relevant (theoretical) concepts to consider
The thesis will consider the relationship between identity and nation, or rather citizenship. Also, it will include reflection on art, such as the idea of NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) presented in Venice biennale in 2017 about a stateless state, that Slavoj Žižek understands as “state without a nation, a state which would no longer be founded on an ethnic community and its territory”, not without reflecting on conflict in Yugoslavia during 90s. The idea of civic national identity assumes that the person identifies with the state in terms of its institutions and rules, and not its traditions, language or religion, typical for ethnic nationalism (see Kiss and Park, 2013). Extending the idea of traditions and language (as ideas that define belonging to a nation) to culture in the case of this thesis, will serve to explore if the common, Yugoslavian identity, exists in different ethnic identities. These are represented by respondents who identify as members of 3 different ethnicities. The key notion in this case is that the civic identity, defined by state institutions, does not exist, because the state does not exist anymore. Kiss and Park argue that ethnic conception of nationalism came to existence in the territories of Germany and Eastern Europe, precisely because the communities living there were fragmented and needed to define themselves. The idea of a Yugoslavian identity that continues to exist even after the legal entity (state) itself ceased to exist, an identity that is based on rather ethnic principles, and within the individuals of different ethnicities, is a provoking thought that can ultimately point out concepts more powerful than nationalism, and within territories that are identified and self-identified as nationalist. Such a concept in this case would be culture.
It is important to note that this thesis might briefly consider the ideas of post-communist nostalgia: the ideas of post-Czechoslovakian or post-SSSR nostalgia, but is not following the idea of exploring post-Yugoslavian nostalgia, concept strongly present and very controversial on the territories of former member states. The thesis will rather explore identity implications that might point out that nostalgia might be about identity.
It is interesting to note an observation of what happened when describing the thesis idea to several future respondents (individuals who belong to the future research target group). The author noticed that respondents’ first reaction was by default to say they are not nostalgic about Yugoslavia and thus are not the right subjects for the research. However, when asked if they know a specific quote from a specific film or if they know a specific bend, or a song, often from the pre-war times, the response was by default positive. Nostalgia about former Yugoslavia is not appreciated in predominantly national states that came to exist after the country fell apart. Same time, there is an undeniable common identity, or at least a recognition, within the population of after-states.
This thesis wants to explore the existence of such identity, and some of its qualifiers, within the population of emigrants from the territory, who are often closely connected in diaspora, with the same language, habits and perceptions of the host country and the world.

Methodology
The topic will be researched via semistructured interviews with individuals in the target group, and analysis of talk data (see Bischoping and Gazso, 2016.) obtained. Draft questionnaire is available here. The interviews will be performed in the native language of the respondents.
It is possible that the textual and content analysis will be performed also on the documents: specific songs, stories or films that might occur in the reports from respondents. Here, the analysis would be performed to understand meanings respondents assign to particular content, and then to look for patterns and commonalities, that can then be translated into (common or not) identity.
Another pattern one can observe specifically when it comes to music is the difference between urban and non-urban population, mapped by the difference between non-folk and folk music, regardless of the nationality. The thesis will also attempt to identify whether there is a joint, non-national and potentially Yugoslavian identity occurring in any of these instances, either urban, non-urban, or both.
Further, and with the assumption that social identity is a fluid phenomenon, and as such can be observed exclusively in interactions, an experiment will be performed. This method will allow for capturing and describing the manifestation and features of this identity, if found. The purpose of the experiment is to identify and evaluate the ability of respondents to cooperate with “documents of memory”, past-related documents such as music, films, narratives and books (see Hajek and Dlouha, 2014). A subset of the interviewed group of people will be brought together and presented with the same or similar set of documents, and will be encouraged to narrate while consuming and receiving the documents, as well as to communicate to one another about documents presented. The indicative elements will be observed - such as usage of “we”, and “us” during conversation, including understanding who that is for a respondent or for the group, as well as how those “we” differ from someone else, and who that “else” is. Second, the dynamic within the group will be observed, the reactions, comments and questions that might arise during the time they are exposed to the documents. During the experiment (or two, within 2 smaller groups), participants will be served food or products from the territory of former Yugoslavia. This will not be purposefully communicated or introduced to them, and any comment around this will be noted.
Finally, the data obtained from the interviews and the experiment, will be compared and analyzed in order to answer the question on phantom identity - identity that is different than national identities, and potentially only manifested in reflection on the past, or specific conditions of the present, during cooperating/consuming the non-material and material products of former Yugoslavia, and/or being together with other people coming from within the geographical borders of the former country.