engleski

A Shrinking Transborder Regional Identity: Case-study of the Region of Syrmia in the Post-Yugoslav Era

As the process of globalization diminishes the differences between communities, societies and regions, the preservation of regional identities and their distinctiveness grows more important, especially in border, peripheral and socioeconomically marginal regions. This paper focuses on research of such a region, Srijem (Syrmia), which is, despite its long history of territorial continuity, nowadays split by the Croatian and Serbian state border. Its regional identity is experiencing continuous changes due to the differences in economic, demographic and functional development between the two parts of the region, as well as the consequences of war and political tensions between states. In order to research those changes, we applied a mixed-method approach, inquiring around 800 respondents via a questionnaire and interviewing 15 inhabitants of Syrmia, coming to several conclusions. The regional identity of Syrmia proved to be shrinking in the Croatian part, as opposed to the persisting regional identity in the Serbian part. Several other conclusions were made regarding the internal and external perception of the region, regional self-identification and spatial identity of the region’s inhabitants, with a strong focus on the differing levels of sense of commonness between the two parts of the region.

regional identity, Syrmia, perception, self-identification, transborder region

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