Guest: Vladan Jeremić, artist, curator, researcher and activist
Duration: ~19 minutes
This episode features a conversation with Vladan Jeremić, an artist, curator, researcher and activist based in Belgrade, currently working as project manager at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe. Drawing on his long-term engagement with social movements, politics, migration and border regimes, Jeremić reflects on the evolution of migration management in Serbia since 2015 and its wider political consequences.
The discussion traces how Serbia initially responded to the so-called “summer of migration” as a transit country, marked by a relatively non-hostile public discourse and forms of informal solidarity. Jeremić explains this response through Serbia’s recent history of displacement during the Yugoslav wars, existing institutional experience with refugees, and geopolitical positioning outside full EU alignment. Early solidarity practices ranged from ad hoc humanitarian assistance to self-organized initiatives operating largely outside formal funding structures.
The conversation then examines the shift that followed, as the European Union increasingly externalized border control. EU funding mechanisms, the establishment of Frontex cooperation, and intensified coordination with neighboring EU member states contributed to border closures, systematic pushbacks, and the accumulation of migrants within Serbia. Jeremić highlights the uneven distribution of resources, noting that funding primarily strengthened state agencies and border regimes rather than civil society organizations.
A central part of the discussion focuses on the role of grassroots initiatives and their intersections with broader social struggles. Jeremić reflects on how migrant solidarity overlapped with anti-gentrification efforts, cultural activism, and opposition to projects such as the Belgrade Waterfront, particularly during the period when refugees lived in the city’s central barracks.
The conversation concludes by situating migration-related activism within current protest movements in Serbia, suggesting that past struggles around borders, displacement, and urban transformation continue to inform contemporary social mobilization.
More information can be found in:
- Antifascism as the Self-Defensive Monument (2023).
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe.
https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication/id/49824/antifascism-as-the-self-defensive-monument - Not Safe At All: The Safe Countries of Origin Legislation and the Consequences for Roma Migrants (2016).
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
https://rosalux.rs/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/099_not_safe_at_all_wenke_christoph_et_al_rls_2016.pdf - From Migration to Deportation: Contributions to the Analysis of Policy Against Roma Migrants and Migrant Women in Europe (2012).
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
https://rosalux.rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/013_od_migracije_do_deportacije_vladan_jeremic_rls_2012_compressed.pdf