Balkanization and Global Politics

Nikolina Bobic is an international scholar, and an architect. Nikolina's research delves into the historical dimensions and theoretical concepts to do with spatial violence, balkanization, borders and territories, and conflict/post-conflict - how these notions manifest at the complex intersection of architecture, urbanism, military, media, economics, technology, literature and film.

• 1. Setting the Framework: Balkan(ization) and Global Politics 2. Balkanism and Balkanization: Fragmentation, Grouping and Excess 3. Yugoslavia In Balkanization: Beyond Civil War, Beyond Ethnonationalism 4. Allied Operations: Present-Future Partnerships of Humanitarianism, Peace and Victory 5. Circulating Violence: Decomposition, Dispossession and Control 6. Territorializations: Transitions, Thresholds and Transgressions 7. Present Spaces, Present Times: Other Spaces, Other Times

"Dissecting the territorial disintegration experienced in Yugoslavia, Nikolina Bobic demonstrates the ways that the militaristic and financial strategies of global capitalism at times intersect with architecture, infrastructure, and urban ideologies. Contemporary balkanization is presented as part of the process of de-and reconstruction of subjectivity attuned with the spectacle of global media, at the expense of manifold layers of historical memories of a place. A timely excursion into the conceptual terrains of balkanization which has achieved a new currency under the rubric of Brexit and the nationalism permeating current Anglo-Saxon geopolitics." — Gevork Hartoonian, Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, University of Canberra, Australia"Balkanization and Global Politics is a powerful inquiry into the way global politics are enacted spatially through architecture and urban design. It is also a detailed investigation of the fate of the states in years of bloodshed that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the high price in loss of freedom they paid in the name of stability. Far from a localized history, this book argues that what happened in the Balkans – which we know today by the word Balkanization – could happen anywhere." — Ian Buchanan, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia"A timely, well-researched and well-crafted book that not only analyses the concepts of 'Balkanism' and 'Balkanisation' but provides a detailed overview of the disintegration of the Yugoslav state from an architectural and urban perspective. Emphasising that urbanism and architecture cannot be dislocated from social history and politics, Nikolina Bobic draws upon extensive research and relevant case studies in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina to underpin a powerful and compelling narrative. The book will be vital reading for scholar