Marco Lanier | New School for Social Research (original) (raw)

Papers by Marco Lanier

In 1999 NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign of targets across Serbia, including the capital of B... more In 1999 NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign of targets across Serbia, including the capital of Belgrade, in order to force the hand of Slobodan Milošević to remove Serbian forces from Kosovo and end atrocities against ethnic Albanians. The operation, officially known as "Operation Allied Force," was widely contested across the global stage as it sidestepped UN authorization in the name of 'humanitarian intervention.' This event, in the larger context of the Balkans in the 1990s, marks a site to explore various aspects of collective memory within post-conflict Serbia and the former Yugoslav republics. Approaching Belgrade as a mnemonic landscape, a fragmented urban topography, that pushes our focus on the material and spatial spread of the city, we can study this 'space' as 'place' in order to clarify the relation of the past with in post-conflict Serbia.

The Balkans are constructed, as all regions are: they are grounded in particular historical, poli... more The Balkans are constructed, as all regions are: they are grounded in particular historical, political, and social developments. The debate over the Balkans proceeds, not only as a contested territorial designation, but as a site of specific, and often negative, political and cultural representation, one that has produced a discourse that has made its way into both vernacular and official discourse through the verb “balkanize” and the noun “balkanization. Such essentializing views of the Balkans echo Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism as a discourse grounded in knowledge production, social sciences, the colonial and imperial rule of the West. Gyan Prakash describes the most consistent quality of Said’s Orientalism as its ability to subversively “violate boundaries and conventions” that continue to “dislocate” the modern West and uncover “how processes of domination are produced, distributed, and consumed” (Prakash 1995: 200, 209). Engaging in this legacy of Orientalism to transgress borders and disciplines this paper considers the potential and limitation of a Balkan Orientalism.

The particular form of Yugoslav market-socialism and Yugoslav self-management retains a forceful ... more The particular form of Yugoslav market-socialism and Yugoslav self-management retains a forceful legacy, yet remains in a field of contestation. Heralded as a triumphant 'third way' between capitalism and Soviet-style socialism, Josip Broz Tito and Yugoslavia forged a particular path through history and in the imaginaries of leftists and capitalists alike. Emerging in partisan resistance against internal and external fascist, Axis, and royalist Chetnik forces-the struggle of an autonomous Yugoslavia is historically rich and complex. However, such a struggle required the use of repressive and autocratic force by Tito and the Communist Part of Yugoslavia (KPJ), the silencing of defeated factions as well as dissidents, anti-communist, and pro-Soviet voices often took form though imprisonment and purges. The Tito-Stalin split and the Informbiro period contributed further, in 1948, to an ambiguous period that produced forms of repression and securitization, as well as hyper-mobilized production and defense forces. It is precisely within this context that the institution of worker self-management was formed and implemented: within tense Soviet relations, competing issues of ideology, and crises of security, production and control.

On November 29th 2017, in a court room in The Hague, the appeal of war criminal Slobodan Praljak ... more On November 29th 2017, in a court room in The Hague, the appeal of war criminal Slobodan Praljak was being adjudicated, the case marked the final case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after twenty-four years of existence. The judge upheld the guilty verdict adjudicated in 2013: Slobodan Praljak was guilty of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and participation in a joint-criminal enterprise (Trial International). However, upon hearing the rejection of his appeal, he stood, curtly declaring: “Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. With disdain, I reject this verdict.” With these determined final words he drank from a vial in his hand, and was reported dead just hours later from potassium cyanide poisoning. Reactions to Praljak’s suicide are telling; the boundaries produced by the conflicts continue to manifest in polemic support or condemnation of Praljak. Official responses are distinct across ethnic/national lines, one side see’s Praljak’s suicide as a virtuous final act of a Croatian patriot, which challenged an illegitimate and biased tribunal. Others maintained that his suicide just serves to create further divisions and demonstrates a pervasive inability to comes to term with the past, an act that robbed victims of closure and peace. Examining responses and reactions to the death of Praljak will contribute to an understanding of the relations of political violence and cultural production, legal systems, and the construction of boundaries, as well as issues of cultural and nationalist essentialism, reconciliation, and memorialization of violence and its presence in collective memory.

In 1999 NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign of targets across Serbia, including the capital of B... more In 1999 NATO began a 78-day bombing campaign of targets across Serbia, including the capital of Belgrade, in order to force the hand of Slobodan Milošević to remove Serbian forces from Kosovo and end atrocities against ethnic Albanians. The operation, officially known as "Operation Allied Force," was widely contested across the global stage as it sidestepped UN authorization in the name of 'humanitarian intervention.' This event, in the larger context of the Balkans in the 1990s, marks a site to explore various aspects of collective memory within post-conflict Serbia and the former Yugoslav republics. Approaching Belgrade as a mnemonic landscape, a fragmented urban topography, that pushes our focus on the material and spatial spread of the city, we can study this 'space' as 'place' in order to clarify the relation of the past with in post-conflict Serbia.

The Balkans are constructed, as all regions are: they are grounded in particular historical, poli... more The Balkans are constructed, as all regions are: they are grounded in particular historical, political, and social developments. The debate over the Balkans proceeds, not only as a contested territorial designation, but as a site of specific, and often negative, political and cultural representation, one that has produced a discourse that has made its way into both vernacular and official discourse through the verb “balkanize” and the noun “balkanization. Such essentializing views of the Balkans echo Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism as a discourse grounded in knowledge production, social sciences, the colonial and imperial rule of the West. Gyan Prakash describes the most consistent quality of Said’s Orientalism as its ability to subversively “violate boundaries and conventions” that continue to “dislocate” the modern West and uncover “how processes of domination are produced, distributed, and consumed” (Prakash 1995: 200, 209). Engaging in this legacy of Orientalism to transgress borders and disciplines this paper considers the potential and limitation of a Balkan Orientalism.

The particular form of Yugoslav market-socialism and Yugoslav self-management retains a forceful ... more The particular form of Yugoslav market-socialism and Yugoslav self-management retains a forceful legacy, yet remains in a field of contestation. Heralded as a triumphant 'third way' between capitalism and Soviet-style socialism, Josip Broz Tito and Yugoslavia forged a particular path through history and in the imaginaries of leftists and capitalists alike. Emerging in partisan resistance against internal and external fascist, Axis, and royalist Chetnik forces-the struggle of an autonomous Yugoslavia is historically rich and complex. However, such a struggle required the use of repressive and autocratic force by Tito and the Communist Part of Yugoslavia (KPJ), the silencing of defeated factions as well as dissidents, anti-communist, and pro-Soviet voices often took form though imprisonment and purges. The Tito-Stalin split and the Informbiro period contributed further, in 1948, to an ambiguous period that produced forms of repression and securitization, as well as hyper-mobilized production and defense forces. It is precisely within this context that the institution of worker self-management was formed and implemented: within tense Soviet relations, competing issues of ideology, and crises of security, production and control.

On November 29th 2017, in a court room in The Hague, the appeal of war criminal Slobodan Praljak ... more On November 29th 2017, in a court room in The Hague, the appeal of war criminal Slobodan Praljak was being adjudicated, the case marked the final case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after twenty-four years of existence. The judge upheld the guilty verdict adjudicated in 2013: Slobodan Praljak was guilty of crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and participation in a joint-criminal enterprise (Trial International). However, upon hearing the rejection of his appeal, he stood, curtly declaring: “Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal. With disdain, I reject this verdict.” With these determined final words he drank from a vial in his hand, and was reported dead just hours later from potassium cyanide poisoning. Reactions to Praljak’s suicide are telling; the boundaries produced by the conflicts continue to manifest in polemic support or condemnation of Praljak. Official responses are distinct across ethnic/national lines, one side see’s Praljak’s suicide as a virtuous final act of a Croatian patriot, which challenged an illegitimate and biased tribunal. Others maintained that his suicide just serves to create further divisions and demonstrates a pervasive inability to comes to term with the past, an act that robbed victims of closure and peace. Examining responses and reactions to the death of Praljak will contribute to an understanding of the relations of political violence and cultural production, legal systems, and the construction of boundaries, as well as issues of cultural and nationalist essentialism, reconciliation, and memorialization of violence and its presence in collective memory.