Stefan Janković: On Political Liminality. Serbia’s Student Protests and the Remapping of Political Space

 Lunchvortrag von Stefan Janković: On Political Liminality. Serbia’s Student Protests and the Remapping of Political Space (auf Englisch). 

Since November 2024, student-led protests sparked by a fatal collapse at the Novi Sad train station have become one of the most significant mobilizations in Serbia’s recent history, pressing for accountability, transparency, and democratic reforms. Over the past year, joined by teachers, high school pupils, and citizens, students have used blockades, strikes, and occupations of media buildings and squares, supported by decentralized networks of coordination, to sustain pressure on state institutions. Whereas the government’s response has oscillated between repression and attempts at delegitimization, the movement’s tactics have shown remarkable persistence and adaptability, posing a serious test for how we conceptualize political mobilization. This lecture approaches the student movement through the lens of political liminality, emphasizing its capacity to distort the legitimate politics. By tracing the material infrastructures of blockades and occupations, we argue that students reconfigured flows, sites, and publics, enacting fragile but concrete re-territorializations of the political space.

B/ORDERS IN MOTION führte die Veranstaltung in Kooperation mit dem Institut für Europa-Studien (IFES) durch.

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