Ethnography of refugees: the Croatian context

The project came into existence as our response to a call we heard and as our duty to observe and understand the current refugee movements that brings refugees across Croatia to the countries of Western and Northern Europe. The continual transformation of the context, procedures and practices, the role of social networks and new technologies in the dissemination of information and perspectives and other specificities of movement of refugees in a given context, open also some important questions about the extents, limitations and possibilities of ethnographic research itself (customary and new roles, goals and methods), to which we are going to devote attention within the framework of this project. The research will yield thick descriptions and deeper insights of this exceptionally demanding theme, and is guided by the belief that the researchers, with their presence on the ground (ethnographic interviews, observation with participation, participation with observation, volunteering and other kinds of engaged ethnographic approach) could have a positive influence in linking various players and perspectives in the complex global, regional and especially local context, that is marked by social problems itself and still carries fresh memories about the experiences with war refugees who were received in the 1990s.