Life in the Shadow of Kosovo’s new Border/Boundaries

What is a border to some remains a boundary to others, depending on one's stance on Kosovo's status. "Let's call a glass a glass," Jablanović implores, referring to the euphemisms daily employed, including by yours truly, to describe the new reality of delimited crossing points. Where once people ambled freely, including across green mountain passes, they are now funneled down particular paths. He sloshes his thimble-shaped glass of "dunjevača" (brandy made from quince) that warms the throat and stabs the upper chest, creating a whirlpool that seems to hypnotise him. "You all refuse to call it a border, whilst for the people who live here this is exactly what it is," he expounds after a long rumination about how this territory had always been on the dividing line between one power or another. The extent of detail - some of it fact, some of it conjecture - is such that I almost forget which juncture in time we're supposed to be discussing. For Jablanović, the idea of such division is inevitable; an historical imperative whose weight crushes all those who attempt to negate it. Where this line will finally be drawn, he does not know.

We meet in a restaurant called Zavičaj, meaning "homeland", an appropriately named venue for such discussions. Over freshly farmed trout, Jablanović speaks on behalf of those disrupted by the dispute over borders/boundaries. He talks about the village of Mare in Serbia, through which the administrative line apparently runs, and the new complexities its one hundred and fifty or so residents now face. It initially seemed a minor anecdote, but it embodied a far broader point that he'd waited patiently to convey; namely, "why to build a border crossing at great expense when you want us to eradicate all such divisions between us?" He's...

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