engleski

Near, Far of Beyond? Migration from the Dalmatian Islands of Olib and Silba

This book chapter discusses migrations on the north Dalmatian islands of Olib and Silba from the anthropological perspective. Narrations and practices of the islanders are analysed. Even though the two islands are separated by less than four miles, their geographical proximity to one another is inversely proportional to the diversity of their social, cultural, economic, and historical heritage. The sense of identity on the island of Olib is shaped by the experience of migration that depopulated the island by more than 90% in less than 100 years. Most of the Olib island community now resides in the US. In recent years the trend of return migration is noticeable, mostly among older islanders in their retirement days. The experience of life in the US had altered self-image of the islanders and re-defined their sense of belonging. Traditional houses that they left are now remodeled and equipped with commodities from America. The daily rhythm of living on the island has also been altered according to their American experience. Often, the feeling of belonging that spread across the continents reveals boundaries of the island as a fluid, dynamic, and transgressive cultural phenomena, rather than mere geographical demarcations. On the other hand, the notion of belonging to the nearby island of Silba differs due to different historical, social, economic, cultural and demographic experience of the islanders. As opposed to Olib, Silba’s maritime-oriented economy enabled sailors to transgress the fixed geographical borders of the island, although they never fully left the island. Their ’’absence’’ from the island has always been temporary, and the notion of belonging and identity manifests through the constant fluctuation of out-of-the-island experience combined with the permanent stay on the island. Examples are numerous and include students, islanders living in nearby Zadar, as well as sailors and other skilled workers. This chapter particularly re-examines the notion of belonging through diasporic perspective, through analysis of practices and narratives of islanders on both Olib and on Silba. To understand the complexities of the concept of the archipelago, a case study of these two islands contributes to re-thinking the multiple layers of which the archipelago consists.

Migration, island identites, archipelago, Olib, Silba, Dalmatia, migration studies

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