@conference{
author = "Stojić Mitrović, Marta and Vilenica, Ana",
year = "2023",
abstract = "The study analyses two sets of narratives in social and mainstream media accusing migrants for the
housing crisis and colonization.
Right before and during Covid pandemic, Asian and African migrants, usually having administratively
unregulated status while transiting through Serbia on their way to the EU, became targets of right-wing
narratives against alleged state-project to secretly replace the population in Serbia. The Facebook group
“Stop-settlement-of-migrants” reached 300,000 members in a matter of days and became the most
frequented platform for constructing migrants as an existential threat for Serbia(ns). In parallel, attacks
on local people renting rooms and houses to migrants became more prominent on social media. This
was accompanied with advertisements with explicit racist content on the short-term rental platforms.
With the invasion of Ukraine, Serbia became one of the places of refuge for both Russian and to a
smaller extent Ukrainian citizens. This immigration activated narratives depicting greedy Serbian
landlords evicting Serbian tenants from rented apartments in order to accommodate wealthy foreigners,
able to pay more, establishing the figure of the amoral renters that chose profit over Serbian-
tenants/Serbians. Unlike the clear anti-migrant stance toward people from Asia and Africa, ambivalent
attitudes toward Russian and Ukrainian citizens led the discussion towards the problem of the
unregulated rental sector and impoverishment of people in Serbia unable to afford homes on the
modified rental market.
The study aims at scrutinizing the structure and constituents of these sets of narratives and their wider
contextualization, while focusing on the underlying nationalist, racial and class aspects.",
publisher = "Belgrade : University, Faculty of Political Science",
journal = "International conference "Migration in the Western Balkans – rethinking crisis narratives", University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science, Belgrade, Serbia, February 2-3, 2023.",
title = "“Who is replacing us in our homes?” Nation, race and class in anti-migrant narratives in Serbia",
url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_15654"
}