Revisiting Involvement and Detachment: Yugoslavia as an Object of Scholarship

  • John B. Allcock
Chapter

Abstract

I begin by quoting from the concluding paragraphs of the paper I delivered to the conference on ‘Yugoslavia: Antagonism and the Construction of Identity’ in August 1992:

Shortly after the civil war engulfed Croatia I decided to telephone two families with whom I have had long-standing friendships in order to find out if they were still safe. After some difficulty I managed to contact both of them. The difficulty was understandable. One family, which lived near the Borongaj barracks in Zagreb, had been intermittently in the air-raid shelters. The other had been evacuated from Dubrovnik and had found refuge with relatives in Montenegro. I asked each of them if there was anything I could do for them — more as a token of my good will than in any expectation that I would be able to help. Although members of different ethnic groups, by coincidence they both said exactly the same thing to me that evening: ‘Hang on to your objectivity’.1

Keywords

International Criminal Tribunal High Emotivity Decent Place European Union Politics East European Study 
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Notes

  1. 1.
    J.B. Allcock, ‘Involvement and Detachment: Yugoslavia as an Object of Scholarship’, Journal of Area Studies, 3 (1993): 144–160.Google Scholar
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Copyright information

© John B. Allcock 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • John B. Allcock

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