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

Lunch lecture by Stefan Janković: On Political Liminality. Serbia's Student Protests and the Remapping of Political Space. Date: 5 November 2025.

Since November 2024, student-led protests sparked by a fatal collapse at the Novi Sad train station have become one of the most significant mobilisations 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. The lecture on 5 November approaches the student movement through the lens of political liminality, emphasising 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-territorialisations of the political space.

The Institute B/ORDERS IN MOTION organised the event in cooperation with the Institute for European Studies (IFES).