Prilozi o ekonomskim aspektima svakodnevice Srba u severnoj Kosovskoj Mitrovici

Abstract

In this paper the author shows the results of the research of everyday life of the Serbs in Northern Kosovska Mitrovica in the conditions of the altered socio-political context after the war in 1999 and ethnical division of this town on two parts: northern (Serbian) and southern (Albanian). The main attention was paid to those aspects of everyday life which were ranked as fundamental, unavoidable fields of everyday reality, and this was work and economy. The results presented in this paper were obtained based on field research conducted several times from 2011 to 2015 in the total duration of over eight months. The research results showed that socio-political alterations in Kosovo and Metohija caused by the consequences of war in 1999, had enormous impact on everyday life of the Serbs in Northern Kosovska Mitrovica. Non-defined institutional-legal situation in the connection with permanent political independence, led to the situation that everyday reality of Serbian population was found captured in one laminal condition, on the margins of that social condition which could be called in modern sense of the word as regulated one. Such condition caused merely complete delay of economy, which in the shadow of former giant Trepča, and in the lack of investments, in the period after war, survives thanks to the influx of resources on behalf of pension benefits, salaries and social welfare being paid from the budget of the Republic of Serbia. The majority of economic activity in the situation alike is of mercantile character which means that a large part of these activities from entrepreneurial sector is based on commerce and service provision, thus consumption. Everyday economy practices of the Serbs in Northern Kosovska Mitrovica one decade and a half after the separation of the city was characterized by a liberal regime is personalized in entrepreneurial activity which is run almost freely and without strict legal rules. In order to ensure the existence in the time where there are no regular incomes, as lot of citizens were forced to get by, thus to resort to different entrepreneurial activities such as: commerce, provision of different services, transport etc. These activities, besides suitability arisen from the fact that due to the non-functioning of the institutions taxes were not paid to the state, could not provide nothing more than a mere survival. The research showed that ethnicity played an important role in economic co-operation among Serbian population in Kosovska Mitrovica, that is, in other terms, economic aspects of everyday life of the Serbs in this city was followed by the favourizing line of the members of the own ethnical group. That was seen practically in all economic practices encompassed with this research, where Serbs were directed to each other. Limits of ethnical favourizing have proven to be permeable, first of all, in the field of commerce. Serbs tried to include in the exchange process of goods and money from pragmatic reasons the Albanians so that this kind of activity in ethnically divided Kosovska Mitrovica was getting additional dimension, as the factor of Serbo-Albanian interconnection.