Forced Migration and Perception of Borders: War-migrant Associations as a Resource of Integration

The migration as such is a trans-border phenomenon per definitionem. War migrants, that could be classified as expelled, refugees, internally displaced persons, returnees, are a particular group within the “migrant community” although the main causes of their mobility are the coercive ones (Zanfrini, 2004; Stalker, 2003). The core interest of this research is the way in which the main actors of recent migrant movements in the former Yugoslavia geopolitical space (1990-2004) perceived the boundaries not only in their functional, geopolitical meaning, but also as the split of borders with their social, cultural and psychological burden. Their point of view enlightens some quite interesting aspects of actual social conditions and policies of local and international authorities working on reassessing and rebuilding of the State institutions, social texture and the political stability of the former Yugoslav republics. Almost all of these countries are still living a process of global transition and consolidation, which is particularly true for the Bosnia Herzegovina and the Serbia Montenegro including Kosovo, as paradigmatic cases for the entire Balkan region. The tension along the state boundaries, inherited from the Yugoslavia, is still quite perceivable. This long and harmful transition keeps the security issues among the most important problems on the political agenda of this European area.