Migrants are an easy, visible Other, seeming to fall neatly into the us-versus-them framework of nationalism. Nevertheless, much of the scholarly approach to migrant identity, with the partial exception of a largely separate literature on citizenship, has eschewed overt ties to nationalism studies. When us-versus-them language is used in relation to nationalism, the focus or nodal point is the identity of the seemingly homogenous “us” of the nation. However, when migrants are othered, the focus is not always the nation, and while othering migrants always creates exclusion, it is not always exclusion from a nation or identity group. This state of the field article analyzes the literature on populism, securitization, biopolitics, and other critical scholarship related to the issue of othering migrants. In each of these bodies of work, different sets of “us” are set against migrants, some of which evoke identity and others of which do not, elucidating the links (or the lack thereof) of each approach to the study of nationalism. In each of these frameworks, the migrant Other comes up against a different frame of reference, leaving migrants themselves (or any sense of migrant identity) somewhat lost amid the analytical frameworks, at continual risk of being re-othered as victims of circumstance without agency.

This article explores the role of Yugoslav self-managed corporations in the global economy, with a particular attention to the late socialist period (1976–1991). Guided by a vision of a long-term integration of the Yugoslav economy into the international division of labor on the basis of equality and mutual interest, by the late 1970s the country’s foreign trade and hard currency revenue was boosted by a number of globally oriented corporate entities, some of which survived the demise of socialism and the dissolution of the country. These enterprises had a leading role as the country’s principal exporters and as the fulcrum of a web of economic contacts and exchanges between the Global South, Western Europe, and the Soviet Bloc. The article seeks to fill a historiographic gap by focusing on two major Yugoslav enterprises (Energoinvest and Pelagonija) that were based in the less-developed federal republics—Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. The article also investigates the transnational flow of ideas around the so-called “public enterprise,” its embeddedness in an interdependent global economy, and its visions for equitable development. Finally, the article explores these enterprises as enablers of social mobility and welfare, as well as spaces where issues of efficiency, planning, self-reliance, and self-management were negotiated.

Yugoslavia’s military internationalism was one of the most practical expressions of the country’s policy of nonalignment. Beginning with Algeria in the 1950s until its demise in the 1990s, Yugoslavia was an ardent supporter of liberation movements and revolutionary governments in Africa and Asia. This article argues that Yugoslav military internationalism was at the heart of Yugoslavia’s efforts to reshape the post-1945 global order and represented an extension of Yugoslav revolution abroad. Military aid was an expression of personal identification of Yugoslavia’s “greatest generation” with decolonization struggle. However, Yugoslav military aid to other countries went beyond a single foreign policy issue. Yugoslav military internationalism touched upon many other issues that included problems related to finances, economic development, the acquisition and transfer of military technology, relations with the superpowers, national security, ideology and politics, and prestige and status in global affairs. By the end of the 1970s, with the departure of the World War II generation and the looming economic crisis, Yugoslav military involvement in the Global South became increasingly driven by economic reasons. Former Yugoslav republics, after a short hiatus in the 1990s during the wars for Yugoslavia’s succession, are still present in the arms trade in the Global South.

This article addresses women’s cross-border internationalist connections within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), focusing on the exchanges between women’s organizations in socialist Yugoslavia and the Global South during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as during the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985). As a result of the Soviet-Yugoslav split, Yugoslavia was expelled from the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), the main organization federating antifascist, communist, and socialist women, in 1949. To overcome international isolation, Yugoslav representatives established their own bilateral connections with women’s organizations internationally, particularly in the Global South. Throughout the Cold War, the main figure behind women’s internationalism in Yugoslavia was Vida Tomšič (1913–1998), a former partisan and leading politician, trained as a lawyer, who had a fundamental role both in nonaligned and UN settings. In this article, I further analyze Vida Tomšič’s visits to India, and examine her correspondence with Indian scholar and Women’s Studies pioneer Vina Mazumdar (1927–2013). The exchanges between Vina and Vida, as they amicably addressed each other, exemplify the significance of the alliance between activists from socialist countries and activists from the Global South during the UN Decade for Women.

This article examines how self-managed faculties in socialist Yugoslavia adopted market mechanisms in the 1970s and 1980s to attract international students and thus contributed to a commercialization of higher education. In the 1950s, Yugoslavia became a destination for students from postcolonial states because of its nonaligned politics. While Yugoslav officials first emphasized aid to students through scholarships, this article argues that projects based on profit seeking began to dominate thinking about aid in the late 1960s. Using archival records in Croatia and Serbia as well as UNESCO and World Bank reports, this article shows how domestic and international factors influenced these changes. Domestically, decentralizing political reforms and decreased funding for higher education allowed republic policy makers to disconnect technical aid from political priorities and to pursue self-financing international students. Detached from centralized policy making, Yugoslav university and republic leaderships, primarily in SR Croatia and SR Serbia, chose the immediate profits of international students over long-term investments in scholarship students. Internationally, reforms promoted by UNESCO and the World Bank shifted aid away from university training abroad to vocational training in situ. These new policies complemented an emerging international division of labor suited more to the economic interests of OECD states and multinational corporations than developing states.

This article maps out a network of cinematic collaboration established between Yugoslavia and the non-aligned countries in Africa, primarily via the institution of the Yugoslav Newsreels (Filmske novosti). Yugoslav newsreel activities developed to accompany the performative diplomacy of President Tito’s “Voyages of Peace,” playing a role both in cementing his image internationally and his political status at home. By the late 1950s, cinema would become one of the central instruments of Yugoslav information activities abroad, capitalizing on an expanding diplomatic network. In this context, Filmske novosti became the bearers of Yugoslav technical aid in the domain of cinema. Building on a trope of shared revolutionary struggles, they boosted Yugoslavia’s international reputation through the filming of the Algerian Liberation Movement. The unique nature of the cinematic aid provided by Filmske novosti to liberation movements such as the ALN and FRELIMO was continued, with assistance in setting up of national film centers in countries such as Mali and Tanzania. Throughout, Yugoslavia maintained a praxis of non-conditional and non-credited transnational ciné-kinship, which is one of the reasons this remains an unknown chapter in the history of Third Cinema and militant ciné-geographies.

This article examines aspects of the history of socialist Yugoslavia’s contribution to creating a transnational Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) culture. It does so by analyzing cultural diplomacy on the Yugoslav cultural and political scene between the 1950s and 1980s. The cultural diplomacy of Yugoslavia and its nonaligned partners is seen as a form of political agency, paralleling and supplementing larger activities of forming economic and political cooperation in the Global South. Yugoslavia’s role in building NAM culture was instrumental in nurturing nascent transnationalism, which was born out of anti-colonial movements following World War II. Cultural events, bilateral agreements, and cultural institutions were used to complement Yugoslav participation in an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist struggle; they promoted NAM ideals and sought to create transcultural networks that would counter Western cultural hegemony. Such examples of solidarity were based in a modernist cultural ethos, but espoused political, social, and cultural forms that were indigenous to various NAM countries. For Yugoslavia, nonaligned modernism and transnationalism solidified the country’s transition from a hardline, Soviet-style state to a more open, humanist-socialist one. The history of transnational collaboration, examined through the narrative of cultural work, is an example of Yugoslav attempts at building political agency and international cooperation through the promotion of nonaligned ideals.

A significant body of literature argues that American evangelical missionaries working in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century directly contributed to the rise of Armenian nationalism. While acknowledging that missionaries had an effect on Armenian nationalism, this article finds that the impact of missionaries was much more unintended than is commonly assumed and resulted primarily from Armenian reactions to growing missionary influence. Employing new data on the biographies of Armenian nationalist leaders as well as comparative-historical methods, the article offers evidence that missionary influence spurred a backlash among the Armenian community that intensified preexisting local initiatives, increased investment in mass education in the provinces, and modernized its schooling system, all of which popularized and strengthened Armenian nationalism.

Focusing on process tracing and using the example of fieldwork in Donbas, I develop an argument on what theoretically grounded and empirically detailed methodological solutions can be considered to mitigate the challenges of research on conflict zones and assure the robustness of any causal claims made. I first outline my assumptions about process tracing as the central case study method and its application to research on conflict zones, and then discuss in more detail data requirements, data collection, and data analysis. Using two examples of case studies on the war in and over Donbas, I illustrate how three standards of best-practice in process tracing—the need for a theory-guided inquiry, the necessity to enhance causal inference by paying attention to (and ruling out) rival explanations, and the importance of transparency in the design and execution of research—can be applied in the challenging circumstances of fieldwork-based case studies of conflict zones. I conclude by suggesting that as a minimum threshold for reliance upon causal inferences, these three standards also should align with a standard of evidence that requires both the theoretical and empirical plausibility of any conclusions drawn.

Drawing on a post-structuralist, post-Marxist discursive approach to nation, this paper aims to (1) explore the constitutive elements of the national ideology of Polish ultras, (2) study what means of expression are used in their choreographies in order to disseminate their vision of the nation, and (3) map the events that stimulate the production of choreographies related to national issues. The study is based on the content analysis of ultras’ displays using data from a print fanzine devoted to football fandom culture in Poland. The results indicate that the national ideology of Polish ultras can be viewed as a resistance ideology. They also reveal that the national ideology of ultras is only presented in particular contexts and is not a dominant issue in their performances. The study introduces the concept of occasional nationalism, which can be a useful analytical tool to map and quantify the presence of nation in practices of articulation of a particular community.

The cult of death and the celebration of martyrdom lay at the core of interwar fascist movements across the European continent. However, it was in the Romanian Legionary Movement (also known as the Iron Guard) that these were articulated into a full-fledged ideology of thanatic ultranationalism. In this article, I examine the spectacular fascist necropolitics staged as state-sponsored funeral performances during the short-lived National Legionary State (September 14, 1940–February 14, 1941). A detailed description of the massive campaign of exhumations and reburials of the so-called “legionary martyrs” carried out during this short time span, culminating with the grandiose ceremony organized for the reburial of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on November 30, 1940, provides insight into the legionary thanatic worldview and ritual praxis. It also sheds light on the movement’s politics of commemoration, death, and afterlife and shows how these were embedded into a religious framework underpinned by theological concepts such as heroic martyrdom, vicarious atonement, and collective redemption.