On Political Liminality: Serbia's Student Protests and the Remapping of Political Space

05 November 2025
13:00-14:00
Hybrid: In presence in room GD 102 & Livestream

Prof. Dr. Stefan Janković  (University of Belgrade) in conversation with PD Dr. Carolin Leutloff-Grandits

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 decentralised networks of coordination, to sustain pressure on state institutions. Whereas the government's response has oscillated between repression and attempts at delegitimisation, the movement's tactics have shown remarkable persistence and adaptability, posing a serious test for how we conceptualize political mobilisation. This talk approaches the student movement through the lens of political liminality. By tracing the material infrastructures of blockades and occupations, we argue that students reconfigured flows, sites, and publics, enacting fragile but concrete re-territorialisations of the political space.

Lunch Lecture of the Viadrina Institute for European Studies (IFES) in cooperation with the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION.

Registration is not required.

Stefan Janković is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of Belgrade.
Carolin Leutloff-Grandits is Senior Researcher at the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION.