PER BROOMÉ & TOBIAS SCHÖLIN Mångfald och organisation – en introduktion. PER BROOMÉ Mångfald – retorik och organisationslogik i Malmö kommun. SOFIA RÖNNQVIST Från gemensam idé till pragmatisk handling – mångfaldstankar och strategier på fyra arbets- och utvecklingscentra. TOBIAS SCHÖLIN Men vaddå, vi är ju i Sverige! Äldrevård och etnisk mångfald som teater, exempel från ett vårdboende i Malmö. VIKTORIJA KALONAITYTE En lektion i samhällsintegration – En studie av mångfald och identifiering på en Komvuxskola

In this introduction to a collection of essays, the editors present how the analysis of affects is grounded in relevant philosophical traditions, review some of the achievements within the humanities and social sciences and raise important methodological issues for ethnology and anthropology. The book is born out of a curiosity to find out how ethnographic research into material culture could benefit from achievements in the growing field of affect and emotion studies.

I dagens forskning har det uppstått ett dynamiskt fält där så vitt skilda vetenskaper som filosofi och neurovetenskap, psykologi och filmvetenskap börjat föra dialoger med varandra. Det handlar då om affekters inverkan på liv och handling. Mycket av den forskningen har än så länge rört sig på ett principiellt plan. Med den här boken ger sig etnologer och antropologer i kast med det konkreta – tingen och de olika affektiva kopplingar som uppstår mellan människor och den omgivande materiella kulturen. Genom täta etnografiska beskrivningar får läsaren här ta del av situationer som hur en kappsäck packas full av såväl hopp som förtvivlan, hur ett arvskifte ger ting från föräldrahemmet ett affektionsvärde som kan få syskon och efterlevande att kapa alla band, eller hur invånare i en belägrad stad får paket med mat och förnödenheter som inte bara lindrar utsattheten utan också ökar känslan av förnedring och vanmakt. I dessa och ytterligare typfall analyseras användbarheten av ett affektivt perspektiv vid förståelsen av relationen mellan människor och tingen omkring dem. Den här boken är ett pionjärarbete i sitt slag inom de nämnda disciplinerna, men vänder sig även till forskare och studenter inom sociologi, kultur- och turiststudier, och naturligtvis till en bredare läsekrets med intresse för studiet av affekt, känslor och materiell kultur.

Those who live their lives across the borders of nation-states as well as scholars and policy makers who research transnational lives are facing rapid alterations in mobility regimes. The articles in this special issue represent trends among transnational migration scholars who have been documenting various aspects of these changes. In order to be able to respond adequately to the transformations in the world that effect migrants and non-migrants alike, it is necessary to theorize temporality.

Gitt forståelsen av integrering som en mangfoldig prosess som kan romme mange ulike praksiser og aktører, diskuterer vi integrasjon som en prosess der mennesker «sikrer sted». Vi utforsker flyktningers integreringsfortellinger, for å forstå hvilke integreringserfaringer disse rommer. Rammeverket til Penninx og Garcés-Mascareñas (2016) brukes til å analysere flyktningers fortellinger om integrering inn i et lokalsamfunn. Gjennom disse erfaringene viser vi et mangfold av integreringsforståelser og praksiser.

With the 2015 refugee migration and its aftermath as a main reference and focal point, this anthology uses Conviviality as a lens to examine the current challenges to democracy. Conviviality and the inter-related concepts Cosmopolitanism and Creolisation are assumed to provide tools for analysis as well as forms for “cross-cutting communication”. Originally introduced by Ivan Illich (1973), conviviality was re-launched and re-defined by Paul Gilroy (2004) against a backdrop of social, racial and religious tensions in post-imperial Britain, denoting an ability to be at ease in the presence of diversity without restaging communitarian conceptions of ethnic and racial difference, and has subsequently been refined to provide “an analytical tool to ask and explore in what ways, and under what conditions, people constructively create modes of togetherness” (Nowicka & Vertovec 2014: 2). In Gilroy’s understanding conviviality was a substitute for cosmopolitanism, which in his view had been hijacked as a pretext for Western “supposedly benign imperialism” in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror (Gilroy 2004: 66). But rather than replacing one concept with the other, this anthology seeks to explore the interconnections – commonalities and differences – between cosmopolitanism and conviviality. Creolisation is the other supplementary concept, by constituting a valid alternative to conventional interpretations of cross-cultural contact and allowing agency and influence to hitherto marginal and subordinate cultures and peoples (Cohen and Toninato 2010).

The introductory chapter discusses conviviality in relation to the adjoining concepts cosmopolitanism and creolisation. Inspired by the Spanish term convivencia, Ivan Illich envisioned a post-industrial convivial society of “autonomous individuals and primary groups” (Illich 1973), which resembles present-day manifestations of “convivialism”. Paul Gilroy refashioned conviviality as a substitute for cosmopolitanism, denoting an ability to be ‘at ease’ in contexts of diversity (Gilroy 2004). Rather than replacing one concept with the other, this book seeks to explore the interconnections—commonalities and differences—between them. The urgency of today’s global predicament is the recurring argument in the discussion of all three concepts, and a further reason to bring them in dialogue. Whereas conviviality and cosmopolitanism are already tightly intertwined, creolisation is arguably a necessary complement to the other two.

The Southeast Europe and Black Sea region presents fertile terrain for examining recent international migration trends. The contributions to this book cover a range of examples, from Ukraine and Moldova in the north, to Greece and Albania in the south. By intersecting the three key concepts of migration, transnationalism and development, they offer new insights based on original empirical research. A wide range of types of migration can be observed in this region: large-scale emigration in many countries, recent mass immigration in the case of Greece, return migration, internal migration, internal and external forced migration, irregular migration, brain drain etc. These migratory phenomena occur within the context of EU migration policies and EU accession for some countries. Yet within this shifting migration landscape of migrant stocks and flows, the fundamental economic geography of different wealth levels and work opportunities is what drives most migration, now as in the past. This book was previously published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

The South-east Europe and Black Sea region presents a fertile terrain for examin- ing recent international migration trends. A wide range of types of migration can be observed in this region: large-scale emigration in many countries, recent mass immigration in the case of Greece, return migration, internal migration, internal and external forced migration, irregular migration, brain drain etc. These migratory phenomena occur within the context of EU migration policies and EU accession for some countries. Yet within this shifting migration landscape of migrant stocks and flows, the fundamental economic geography of different wealth levels and work opportunities is what drives most migration, now as in the past. This paper sets the scene for the special issue in three ways: first, by defining the three key concepts of migration, transnationalism and development; second, by setting the geographical scene, with the aid of relevant statistics on the migration, development and remittance trends in the various countries of the region; and third, by summarizing the highlights of the papers in this issue of the journal, which range in their coverage from Ukraine and Moldova in the north, to Greece and Albania in the south.

During the 1992–95 war, the vast majority of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina relied on international humanitarian assistance for survival. Material goods sent as humanitarian aid were crucial to the civilians trapped in Sara-jevo under siege. This chapter presents what some of the residents remember and how they talk about it two decades later. The analysis pursues how the act of narration of a particular person–object interaction activates corporeal memories and establishes affective links – resonances in the body and mind – between then (when the experience was acquired) and now (when one narrates it), between what the research participants talked about (their humanitarian aid-related experiences), and how they talked about it (affects that were revived in the course of narration). The vivid descriptions of sensual experiences concerning humanitarian aid – the tastes and smells of food and feel of clothing items received from distant donors – witness to the lingering sensual effects those experiences still have today.

The 1991-95 wars in the former Yugoslavia were dealt with by anthopologists and ethnologists as the conflict was actually ongoing. Ethnographic fieldwork among civilians rendered refined knowledge of daily life, processes of identification, and patterns of action. Such knowledge often remains overlooked, especially in the shadows of the many analyses of political discourses, documents, institutions, and the role of the media. However, such ethnographic work is central to any understanding of the effects of military violence on people and the difficulties they meet in the processes of individual and societal recovery.

This chapter sheds light on some aspects of situating identities within a transnational framework. The practice of personal travel as a means of maintaining transnational social fields is focused upon. A micro-ethnographic study is presented of a bus ride between Sweden and Croatia. The material used refers to labour migrants and their families, as well as people who came to Sweden as refugees. Their transnational practices are connected to some aspects of ethnic identification processes. The author argues for central importance of fieldwork in ethnological/anthropological understandings of transnational practices and their implications, and discusses some methodological concerns. The embodied geography of physical distances and national borders is just one element of transnational individuals’ and groups’ identification processes. Nevertheless, it is central to ethnographic accounts on the multiple and often burdensome experiences of connecting places. Such accounts are indispensable in the joint interdisciplinary effort of locating and historicizing transnationalism from below, in order to promote it as a useful scholarly concept.

This is a debate article, reacting to an article published in the same journal.

Based on research into war-related issues in Croatia and migration-related issues in Sweden, this article discusses belonging as conditioned by social and psychological concreteness: it is rooted in place, familiarity, sensual experience, human interaction and local knowledge. Inclusive identities resulting from a sharing of places are obvious in situations of crisis. However, they are always latently present, in war as in peace, in diasporic surroundings as well as among those who stayed behind, in different epochs and political systems.

This article presents state of the art ethnology and anthropology of Europe as indicated in the programmes of two international conferences to be held in 2008. The author discusses the parameters of pertinent research topics and suggests three themes that are especially relevant for present-day Europe as a field of ethnographic research. They concern migration, citizenship and Europe beyond the EU. Conceptual lenses other than those of culture and identity are proposed, referring to places, practices and experiences.

Eight ethnologists, anthropologists and sociologists contributing to this edited collection analyse processes of identity formation among people living out of their national states. Their contributions are based on research in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Macedonia and Croatia. The focus is shifted from the discussion of integration of immigrants in the country of residence, to the transnational aspects of their identifications, political concerns and everyday lifes.

The author argues for central importance of fieldwork in ethnological/anthropological understandings of transnational practices and their implications, and discusses some methodological concerns. The embodied geography of physical distances and national borders is just one element of transnational individuals’ and groups’ identification processes. Nevertheless, it is central to ethnographic accounts on the multiple and often burdensome experiences of connecting places. Such accounts are indispensable in the joint interdisciplinary effort of locating and historicizing transnationalism from below, in order to promote it as a useful scholarly concept.

Different contexts and different aspects of identity formation processes are discussed, connected to the question of the relation between the given and the negotiable identification categories that immigrants and people in exile deal with.

Positioned at the intersection between ethnology, migration research and studies of material culture, the article argues for recognising the importance of the material layers of transnational social fields. Drawing on Levitt and Glick Schiller’s analytical distinction between ways of being and ways of belonging, it exemplifies how a material culture perspective contributes to a balanced understanding of migrants’ lives as positioned in both material and discursive terms and equally importantly formed by practices as by representations. Three theoretical statements, grounded in the analysis of ethnographic material, are elaborated in the article. They refer to the presence of objects in another location, the continuity of practices perceived as normal, and the practice-based feeling of emplacement. Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and Hage’s discussion of hexis are used to explain the interconnectedness of these statements. The article suggests that studying the changes of habitus that occur due to migration is needed for a deeper understanding of the processes of migrant emplacement through practice.

This man was a 1990s Croatian war refugee from Bosnia to Sweden. Besides telling me about his brothers’ family tragic war experiences and his own struggle in the first years upon arrival to Sweden, he also talked about one of his children’s professional success – a matter of which he was enormously proud. He was pleased with his own employment that enables him to make use of his pre-war professional experience. The best thing about that job, however, is the fact that he can pile up free days and use them in order to go to Bosnia and Croatia at least four times a year. ‘it was very difficult in the beginning’, he said referring to his first refugeeyears in Sweden, while he had not yet obtained his present employment, and at the same time took financial responsibility of his orphaned nephew, placed with the relative in Zagreb. ‘But now it is really good’. 

In contrast to political science-based Peace and Conflict Studies, the multidisciplinary curriculum of Peace and Conflict Studies at Malmö University includes anthropological perspectives on political violence. Pursuing the "what" questions while considering experiences, practices and the creation of meanings that remain invisible in top-down theories of power is seen not only as a complement to the answers attempted to "why" questions. Ethnographic insights as a basis of production of knowledge on civilians' experiences and attitudes in war- and post-war contexts are necessary for understanding the conflicts' dynamics and thus crucial in any attempt of conflict resolution and peace-keeping. The specific contribution of anthropology is indispensable, for its focus on individual agency in local circumstances, and the simultaneous grasping of how they are embedded in national and transnational contexts. A further potential of anthropological contributions to Peace and Conflict Studies refers to the course "War and Art: Representations and Interpretations", where - within a regional focus and time-span that facilitate a comparative approach - different means of representation and different modes of interpretation of war experiences (including visual arts and literature, documentary photography and films) are explored against the background of anthropological texts. Relations between private and political spheres, individual experiences and representations of groups, and definitions of insider and outsider positions are discussed, as well as political and humanitarian mobilization involved in different types of professional engagement.

The chapter presents an ethnological research project among the Croatian labour migrants and refugees living in Sweden. It indicates that ideological homogenization in post-Yugoslav countries caused by the 1990s wars may be counterpointed by the manifold divisions among the people of the same ethnic affiliation who live in diasporic contexts.

In the current globe-spanning processes of neo-liberal restructuring, several smaller scale cities across Europe appear as ‘aspiring cosmopolitan cities’: adopting a discourse of cosmopolitanism is currently ‘in’ as a mode of self-representation. A belief in a self-fulfilling prophecy seems to spread, of claiming to be, and therefore becoming, vibrant, open, multicultural and, none the least, cosmopolitan. In this context, migrants living in the city – even if occupying lower or totally marginal socio-economic positions – become “good” for the city’s image. Their presence adds to the visual diversity deemed normal for the so-called global cities. The languages the migrants use in their homes, and their personal connections to faraway places, are highlighted as a proof of the city’s multiple connectedness and openness, promising cultural and economic rewards. What are the actual roles of the migrants living in such cities? What exactly are the connections between the ways any people living in a city do boundary work in everyday life across national and structural contexts, and the normative agenda that has been named ‘cosmopolitan’? The burgeoning academic literature on cosmopolitanism offers a lot of theoretical considerations of ‘cosmopolitan imagination’, and a number of inventive notions such as ‘vernacular’, ‘banal’, ‘ordinary’, ‘marginal’, ‘unreflexive’, or ‘actually-existing’ cosmopolitanism. However, it is poor in empirical-analytical accounts and hardly offers any guidelines for ethnographic research. This paper aims at launching a discussion of ethnographic indicators of the what, where and when of cosmopolitanism as a cluster of phenomena grounded in people’s practices and in places of their everyday interactions, that is not reduced to transnational movements and cultural diversity. If we want to tackle lived experiences, material aspects and social-relational dimensions of cosmopolitanism in situ, micro-ethnographic approach is a needed as a basis of a theoretical and methodological framework that would allow innovative comparative research, with special regard to the current situation and prospects concerning migrants and cities.

This article explores an in situ approach to the emergence of cosmopolitanism as domains of common interest and aspiration. Adopting a cosmopolitan lens that does not assume the central role of categories of diversity in structuring social relationships, the article captures the dialectics between the material place, which facilitates interactions and the social space created in the course of engaged practice in a specific urban setting. The cosmopolitan lens made visible the ways in which local and global concerns and dynamics of power are emplaced in Möllevången, in Malmö, Sweden, a neighborhood defined by a local history of immigration and activism as well as by the globe-spanning processes of urban restructuring. Locally organised cultural and political events and initiatives promote a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood and conjoin particular and universal commitments towards environmental issues, human rights, equality and social justice.

The paper presents research-related character of two courses within the multidisciplinary curriculum of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) programme at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University: 'Civilians in and after the war' and 'From theory to research results in PACS'. The first course introduces the students to the research content based on ethnographic research. Its specific importance to PACS is argued for and compared with the latter course, which focuses on research processes and problems that are generally pertinent to social sciences. The two courses appear as two distinct modalities of developing undergraduates’ research awareness and capacity that are based on an ethnologist’s expertise integrated in a multidisciplinary undergraduate programme.

The chapter presents results of ethnological fieldwork concerning the war in Croatia in 1990s and people's pronounced feelings of connection to the places of their everyday life.

Ethnicity paradigm in migration research - looking at migrants as ‘members’ of ethnic communities and ‘bearers’ of ethnic identities – hinders the understanding of diversity and similarity beyond ethnicity. This article promotes ethnographic research that treats the importance of ethnicity as an empirical question, while focusing on migrants’ material practices. It proposes a shift of interest from material representations of social relations to the very materiality of objects in transnational contexts of migration, and to what people actually do in order to maintain vital connections that constitute transnational social fields. Those connections are often dependent on objects that migrants bring along, send, receive, and use.

This chapter assesses cultural boundaries imposed upon and established by Croats living in Sweden. Their original belongings, and the many current transnational connections, make their perceptions of Balkan-linked cultural boundaries relevant also in a diasporic context.

Methodological pragmatism is more often than not employed in ethnographic enterprises, but not often discussed. Claiming that methodological discussions are most fruitful when referring to concrete research topics and the researcher’s dilemmas in the field, the author discusses pragmatic uses of her own self in constructing the field. Referring primarily to the shared ethnicity as the “experimental arena”, she proposes an evaluation of the heuristic potentials of her meetings with people in diasporic contexts, and reveals some of the fieldwork situations important for gaining ethnological insights.

Methodological pragmatism is more often than not employed in ethnographic enterprises, but not often discussed. Claiming that methodological discussions are most fruitful when referring to concrete research topics and the researcher’s dilemmas in the field, the author discusses pragmatic uses of her own self in constructing the field. Referring primarily to the shared ethnicity as the “experimental arena”, she proposes an evaluation of the heuristic potentials of her meetings with people in diasporic contexts, and reveals some of the fieldwork situations important for gaining ethnological insights.

This paper discusses empirical examples of Bosnian Croats and their children who settled in Sweden due to the 1990s war in their country. Their local economic and social incorporations have been relatively successful and not hindered by their transnational practices, which involve three countries (Sweden, Bosnia and Croatia). The paper focuses on the attempts to create employment and to gain education that make use of transnational spaces. My research participants did not use transnational options out of necessity, but out of perceived unproblematic possibilities of personal choice. Still, transnational options did not necessarily bring about satisfactory results: efforts were not necessarily rewarded in the expected ways. This invokes theoretical considerations of why this might be the case. The main theoretical point made in the paper pertains to the concept of community. It is deconstructed in line with the research participants’ expectations and disappointments that make clear the imagined character of ‘ethnic communities’ as well as the dynamics of local inclusions, which prove to be equally complex in any location within a transnational space.

This paper presents ethnographic material obtained between 2011-2013, among migrants with different socio-economic backgrounds from different countries who came to Sweden to seek asylum, employment, or education. It is based on the project "The Transnational Life of Objects: Material Practices of Migrants' Being and Belonging" (supported by The Swedish Research Council), which promotes a broad interest into how objects constitute the world experienced by migrants and their counterparts who stayed behind, and how objects enable these actors to be embedded in transnational social spaces of their own making. Virtually all research participants bring and receive food from their countries of origin. However, this paper suggests that the ubiquity of food parcels criss-crossing borders needs to be understood in relation to other kinds of objects that often travel with them, and that the importance and meanings of food need to be explored (also) beyond the lens of culture. The examples of food that travels from the countries of immigration to the countries of origin, as well as of food that can be bought in the place of immigration but is nevertheless transported from the place of origin, pose analytical challenges that are best met by employing a distinction between the ways of transnational being and belonging (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004). Focusing on food as a matter of being, this paper probes three theoretical statements that emerged from the project. They concern: presence in another location, perceived normality, and the feeling of incorporation.

This chapter is based on the research project “The Transnational Life of Objects: Material Practices of Migrants’ Being and Belonging,” which promotes a broad interest in how objects constitute transnational social spaces established by migrants and by their counterparts who stayed behind. The question of how people make choices, exercise agency and create continuity in conditions of transnational migration is pursued, with the focus on objects and material practices. Deliberations around the meanings of “the taste of home” are plentiful in the intersected fields of food, migration and material culture studies, and tend to focus on identity and memory. Indeed, food can be interpreted as a material expression of belonging, status or family history, or of social and cultural difference. Food can be central to migrants’ creation of places of remembrance or pride, mourning or celebration, privacy or symbolic communion, or economic connection with the relatives who stayed behind. As the negotiation of belonging often entails communication through objects, food parcels are involved in multifaceted quests and attempts to belong. However, by presenting and discussing some ethnographic examples of sensuous aspects of transnational interconnections in situations of physical separation, I promote a complementary approach that centres on the materiality of food and food-related objects and practices.

The migrants’ and their descendants’ presence in leading positions in Europe is full of tensions and does not develop at the same pace in all professional fields. This project explores such processes of establishment in present-day Sweden, in academia and cultural production as the two fields in which migrants have the highest representation in leading positions in public institutions.

This project contributes to the emerging cross-European debate and research on the ‘postmigrant’ condition that acknowledges antagonistic positions towards migration, and struggles about participation and representation, but also highlights new alliances that are not reduced to origin or heritage.

Our empirical interest is directed at the paths to recognition and professional influence of people who self-identify as migrants or migrant descendants and work as university teachers and researchers on the one hand, and as authors, cultural journalists and professionals in performing arts on the other.

Spanning ethnology, migration and literary studies, the project explores different constellations of alliances between migrants, their descendants and ‘natives’, with a particular interest in the role of friendship. It addresses issues of professional influence and public visibility and asks how they differ in the two fields. It also brings insights into the under-explored Arabic language-based cultural field in Sweden.

This chapter presents the impacts that the war in 1990s had for Croatian diasporas’ homeland-related sentiments and actions, and offers insights in the activities of the Croatian community in Malmö. Central are examples of the personal narratives of Croatian refugees from Bosnia-Hercegovina. They are compared to the narratives of the Croats living in Sweden for several decades. Although people quoted are co-ethnics who occupy an equal legal position in Sweden (being Swedish citizens), their narrations on home and homeland show considerable differences.

The chapter presents ethnographic insights into everyday life in war circumstances, in Croatia 1991.

Recent scholarship on immigrant incorporation in urban environments suggests that the enlarged presence and everyday interaction of people from all over the world leads to multiple cultural competence and cosmopolitan orientations and attitudes. It is widely accepted that cosmopolitanism intensifies the consciousness of the world as a whole, and allows insights and understandings that reach beyond a national perspective. If currently all cities are global in the sense that they have become part of the globe-spanning processes of neo-liberal restructuring and rescaling, does this mean that they are also cosmopolitan? While research shows that in the so-called global cities diversity has been built into the very fabric of everyday life, aspiring cosmopolitan cities such as Malmö need to be investigated. Are investments in urban structure, creativity and entrepreneurship, as witnessed in contemporary Malmö, also pathways to cosmopolitanism, and if so for whom? What is the role of the migrants living in the city? This paper discusses ethnographic indicators of the what, where and when of cosmopolitanism as a cluster of phenomena grounded in both public spaces and mundane practices.

The author argues that ethnographic insights into migrants' personal relations achieved through objects, and their involvement in social networks provided through objects, can open up new avenues of understanding and contribute to the creation of new conceptual lenses in studies of migration. Conceptual and methodological issues are discussed, and the themes outlined, that connect ethnographic examples presented in the contributions to the following thematic section in this issue. Most important is the reconsideration of the migrants' presupposed collective identities. The claims to and representations of (usually ethnic) belonging may be detached from the ways in which people fashion their transnational social fields.

The main objective of this paper is to discuss the relevance of producing ethnographically founded knowledge of the roles of objects in the creation and maintenance of migrants’ transnational social fields. It also claims the importance of ethnographically founded knowledge about migrants as people whose everyday lives encompass locations in different nation-states, and not as bearers of ethnic identities. A common way of reasoning about migrants and objects is that objects signal a person’s identity and aid memory. In contrast, this paper pursues an interest in how objects constitute the world experienced by migrants in terms of its materiality. The presumed contribution is twofold, namely to the discipline of ethnology and the interdisciplinary field of migration research. With its focus on objects used in everyday life, the approach promoted in this paper differs significantly from the studies that prioritise a discursive formation of identities. The study of objects that are used, sent, received, refused and struggled with in the realm of transnational social fields intends to contribute to the epistemological balance of ethnological understanding of people’s identities as equally importantly positioned in material and discursive terms and equally importantly defined by practices and representations. If the importance of ethnicity is treated as an empirical question, and not as an assumed explanatory ground, a decisive step is taken beyond the ethnicity paradigm in migration research. The author claims that research-based contributions are welcome, towards a more complex understanding of the multiplicity of migrants’ positions, practices and identities, the perception of which may be hindered by a sole focus on their ethnicity, and by the presumption that they are ‘members’ or ‘representatives’ of any groups or communities. Comprehensive comparisons are suggested, based on extensive micro-studies of individuals’ strategies of creation and maintenance of transnational social fields. Thick descriptions (based both on observations and narratives) of specific trajectories and practical uses can contribute to a better understanding of the material layers of transnational spaces.

MATERIAL PRACTICES OF BEING AND BELONGING IN TRANSNATIONAL SOCIAL FIELDS The claims to and representations of (usually ethnic) belonging may be detached from the ways in which migrants fashion their transnational social fields. Ethnographic insights into migrants’ personal relations achieved through objects, and their involvement in social networks proved through objects, can open up new avenues of understanding and contribute to the creation of new conceptual lenses in studies of migration. This paper proposes a shift of focus from material representations of social relations to how objects are carried around, sent, received, used or struggled with in transnational contexts of migration. Along with the ideas and discourses of identity, belonging and integration that dominate research, the suggestion is that practices and lived experiences involving the objects through which migrants accomplish incorporation in different locations should also be investigated. The paper thus argues in favour of an ethnographic research that focuses on objects that not only constitute people’s material worlds, but that also, via their transnational routes, destabilise the notions of ‘rooted’ cultures and localised communities to which they ‘belong’. Following these routes can afford insights into the construction of boundaries that may have little to do with the legal inclusions and exclusions in a certain territory. Furthermore, it could contribute to a rethinking and reformulation of the concept of society as being equated with the borders of a single nation-state – a theoretical priority of studies of transnational migration. The oneness (or continuity) of transnational social fields experienced by migrants can be exemplified by following the objects. Material aspects of simultaneity imply that the places of emigration (and of regular or sporadic return) must also be observed if an experience-oriented understanding, grounded in insiders’ acts and perceptions, is to be attempted. Whether materialised in or conditioned by objects, personal and group connections to other places and other cultural practices provide people with a sense of continuity and signal their incorporation in social fields that encompass more than one place in more than one state. There is also an ethical dimension to research that promotes insights into those basic material issues that define human lives in realms considered to be of the utmost personal and emotional importance and at the same time so mundane and common. Learning about what people do and why, their motivation, practices and lived experiences with regard to domestic spheres and connections to those who are socially close and emotionally important yet live in other countries, could pave the way to a deeper understanding and recognition of shared human concerns – ethnicities, cultures and states in spite.

A common way of reasoning about migrants and objects would be that objects signal who they are, and are good to remember with. This paper pursues an interest in how objects constitute the world that migrants experience in its materiality, and how they enable them to be embedded in transnational social fields of their own making. Recognising “the synthetic capability of actual material forms (rather than the interpretive tropes that have arisen around them) to combine perspectives and domains of knowledge” (Geismar and Horst 2004: 6), I suggests one of the possible directions of research in the field of migration that might not only enrich our ethnographic insights, but hopefully lead to new understandings. The impetus for this paper lies in my fieldwork-based insights into the predicaments of the “ethnic lens” which – if forced upon what we can see in the field – limits the possibilities of understanding. Along with researchers, migrants, too, engage in discourses in which ethnicity and national origin loom large – either of “good immigrants” within the multicultural institutions, or of, e.g., “good Croats” within the homeland politics encompassing diasporas. But they also engage in a number of practices that have little or nothing to do with their ethnicity. Whatever people do is sustained by or inscribed in a particular materiality. In order to give those practices an equal chance in our constructions of the field, more attention should be devoted to what people actually do – here with respect to their efforts to keep vital connections among different locations encompassed by their activities. Writing about migrants without relying on the concepts of ethnicity and identity? My effort to step beyond the presumption about ethnicity as a necessary element (often even a basis) of explanations of migrants’ behaviour, convenes with Jean-Pierre Warnier’s claim that material culture is “not only good to think with, to categorize, to signify, to communicate, or to produce identity, but also to move and act upon, against, together, or with” material objects (Warnier 2001: 6). I propose that empirical interest should be directed to objects the migrants acquire and use in different locations of their lives.

Violence imposed on a place bears not only the implicit challenge to the identities associated with it, but it also provokes responses related to a sense of place. In the context of war, place suddenly matters in a more direct and more intense way. The uniqueness of the place based primarily on the social value it has for people becomes visible and reflected upon as concrete and at one with action and thought. In this article, personal narratives on war experiences in the 1990s by the civilians in Dubrovnik, are related to Edward S. Casey’s propositions about every place being encultured and every culture being implaced. The tension is explored, between being "Europeans" and being "war victims" – two types of place-bound identity.