The Politics of desire and disdain: Croatian identity between "Home" and "Homeland"

Abstract

The collapse of communism in the former Yugoslavia has sparked an avalanche of personal and political questions for Croatians everywhere on the meaning of their history, traditions, and identity. This article analyzes the mutually constitutive relationships of diaspora Croatians and the focus of their desire: a free Croatia whose citizens participate in the "production" or "recovery" of the historic Croatian state. But, rather than inspiring unity, independence has created the conditions for the emergence and exacerbation of often fraught or equivocal relationships within and between these groups. The Croatian example challenges the inclination to juxtapose diaspora and homeland contexts and points to the need to investigate the struggles of their subjects to define their often tenuous yet increasingly intimate relationships within, across, and between borders. [Croatian independence, politics of desire and disdain, diaspora, identity, homeland]