AnthroTalking

Špela Drnovšek Zorko is currently working on her PhD degree at the department of Anthropology and Sociology and is a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher in the ‘Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging’ (CoHaB) Network at the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at SOAS at the University of London. For her doctoral studies Špela explores the ways in which former Yugoslav migrants living in Britain today mediate memories of Yugoslavia and how these ideas are negotiated intergenerationally. She talks about the variety of narratives of former Yugoslavia encountered while doing fieldwork in post-Yugoslav diasporas in London. From the olden days of the kingdom to the more or less harmonious coexistence of multiple ethnicities during the socialist years and the outburst of violence in the nineties – this eventful past leads to a conglomerate of competing naratives and negotiation of identity among successor state migrants. Špela, a Slovenian herself, narrates her approach to the field and how she got to know her informants through singing in the choir, language studies and not least of all traditional cuisine.