1 ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Anarchists’: Autonomy, solidarity, and sacrifice in Belgrade, Serbia Frederick Schulze Submitted to Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Professor Don Kalb CEU eTD Collection External reader: Maple John Razsa Second reader: Violetta Zentai Budapest, Hungary 2017 2 Table of Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................................4 Introduction [i/A] Dissertation overview..................................................................................................................6 [i/B] Class and race..............................................................................................................................9 [i/C] Anarchism and the State.............................................................................................................24 [i/D] Methodology..............................................................................................................................37 Chapter I: InexFilm [I/A] Field site description..................................................................................................................44 [I/B] The sacred political....................................................................................................................48 [I/C] Structural power.........................................................................................................................65 [I/D] Tactical power............................................................................................................................76 Chapter summary................................................................................................................................90 Chapter II: Deponija [II/A] Field site description................................................................................................................92 [II/B] The politics of the slum............................................................................................................96 [II/C] Control and the ‘gypsy race’..................................................................................................110 [II/D] Ciganizam..............................................................................................................................131 Chapter summary..............................................................................................................................142 Chapter III: Koko Lepo [III/A] The basis and history of my collective.................................................................................144 [III/B] Solidarnost, autonomnost, i ravnopravnost..........................................................................164 [III/C] Stealing from the free shop...................................................................................................187 Chapter summary..............................................................................................................................196 Concluding remarks.......................................................................................................................198 Appendix I: Pronunciation guide..................................................................................................201 References........................................................................................................................................202 CEU eTD Collection 3 Abstract This is an ethnographic account of a unique experiment in solidarity that united the so-called ‘anarchists’ of a squatted social center in the Karaburma neighborhood of Belgrade, Serbia to the so-called ‘gypsies’ of the nearby informal settlement, Deponija. The experiment took the form of an autonomous kindergarten and youth solidarity program named ‘Koko Lepo’ which has been continually reborn over years of trial and error as well as struggles over the nature of solidarity, autonomy, and equality. Working with an anarchistic anthropological lens of the State as a holistic social agency and a class-struggle framework for understanding race in the capitalist city, this dissertation examines how ‘the anarchists’ and ‘the gypsies’ of this project confronted – or were confronted by – the State and racism and how, through acts of sacrifice and incommensurability, succeeded or failed to overcome the “inimical profane” of these forces in the creation of a new “sacred politics” of solidarity and autonomy on their own terms. This study entails an interpretive and power-centered analysis of the InexFilm squat and the mobilization of symbolic violence to create political identities therein, a political economic account of the Deponija slum and an argument for the political agency of racialized laboring and policed subjects, and finally an interpretive and historical account of the use and evolution of concrete values within the Koko Lepo collective. Methodologically, this work is an argument for the inclusion of direct action into ethnographic research and the experimental basis of solidarity. CEU eTD Collection 4 Acknowledgments I am most indebted to my fellow collective members in Koko Lepo and the families of the Deponija mahala. The richness of our collective experiment could produce mountains of literature, and might still, but more importantly it created precedents and joined the global struggle for equality, solidarity, and autonomy with concrete interventions. While I have anonymized all of you in this writing, I hope you know how profoundly you have changed my epistemology and my life. The work is far from over. I would especially like to thank Sait and Emrana from Deponija, however, for patiently showing me the ropes and consistently filling-in the gaps of my understanding of life in the settlement, as well as properly scolding me when we pushed too hard in the wrong places. Of course, I am also grateful for the mentoring of my supervisor, Don Kalb. While your influence on this work may be less than obvious in places to my readers, it is in fact the foundations upon which my understanding of class struggle has been constructed. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor, one that let me sail freely out into the ocean of social experimentation, yet kept the lighthouse burning for me to find my way home. You trusted me enough to take great risks and make profound shifts in my course of study that other doctoral students would consider unrequitable luxuries. Thanks to this trust, I have been free to construct an anthropology that can intervene directly into the issues and problems that have defined our intellectual and moral bearings. I thank you for making this worker from Texas feel understood and capable in Academia. I thank my parents, Fred and Candy, for passing on to me their intellects, love, and belief in a world larger than our own from which both my brother, Bryan, and I have grown. I thank Relja Knežević for inviting me to share his world and offer me a life in Belgrade that matters while constantly challenging me to rethink and reformulate my activism. I thank Andrej Grubačić for his comradeship and intellectual influence on my work as both an anarchist and anthropologist. I thank my band, Justin, Noemi, and Endre, for melding my work with ours and taking an active and supportive interest in my activities here. I thank Bojan Đurišić for being my cimer, comrade, and friend as well as helping me find work to keep starvation from interrupting my research. I thank the teachers of the Tom and Ema School of English for their support and understanding. I thank Stefan Bakić for being a knowledgeable and critical interlocutor and a good friend. I thank Marko Ferenc for being an amazing fellow traveler and supporting me when I needed it most. I thank Tanja Anđić for her editorial prowess and critical gaze on my writing. I thank Milan Škobić for his intellectual honesty and for the challenging debates he has always been willing to join me in during our tenure at Inex. On that note, I am indebted to the support of my dear comrades past and present from the CEU eTD Collection Infoshop Furija as well as many others at the InexFilm squat and those who have passed through it, each shaping my understanding of the Other World of Experienced Reversed in new ways. Finally, there are two people whose impact on my life has proven inestimable. I am humbled by the support, love, and comradeship of Natalija Đorđević, whose belief in me continues to fuel my desire to help create a better world. And to my eternal comrade, Natalia Buier, whose sharp edges and soft heart will forever prefigure my own politics, I offer more than gratitude, but a promise to continue our work and keep the bastards scared. 5 Introduction CEU eTD Collection Dissertation overview [A] Class and race [B] Anarchism and the State [C] Methodology [D] Photo: Maja Blesic 6 [i/A] Dissertation overview ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Anarchists’: solidarity, autonomy, and the inimical profane in Belgrade This text is a critical and analytical record of struggles that took place in Belgrade, Serbia between the years 2013-2016 as part of the long and arduous attempt to reconcile two related but antagonistic fields through a single collective