Abstract

The author is using a series of examples from her three-year research on social perception of the European Union in Croatia in order to pose several critical questions regarding the current application of the Balkanist criticism in the region and beyond. The research was conducted with three groups of interviewees who were, in different ways, related to the EU. Various notions of Europe and the Balkans, which appeared throughout these interviews, differed from the predominant discourse of the 1990s. The article also indicates the decline of the importance of symbolic geography in the interpretation of notions associated with the EU. In the questioning of metatheoretical level, the author suggests several new paths of research in Balkanist and other, closely related fields of study: admitting the importance of economy, which has been, in the past twenty years, secondary to the examination of questions related to culture and history, and also the production and flow of knowledge. In conclusion, the author proposes examining the approaches which would also enable the inclusion of the enriching, non-repressive and useful encounters between the center and periphery. Autorica koristi primjere iz visegodisnjeg istrazivanja drustvene percepcije Europske unije u Hrvatskoj kako bi postavila niz pitanja o primjeni balkanisticke kritike u recentnoj akademskoj produkciji. Kroz intervjue s pripadnicima triju skupina, koje su na razlicite nacine povezane s Unijom, na vidjelo izlaze predodzbe o Europi i o Balkanu koje nisu u skladu s prevladavajucim diskursom devedesetih godina proslog stoljeca. U radu se naznacuje i opadanje vaznosti simbolicke geografije u tumacenju predodzbi o EU. Propitujuci metateorijsku razinu, autorica predlaze nekoliko novih smjerova za balkanisticka i srodna istrazivanja: priznavanje vaznosti ekonomije, koja je posljednjih dvadesetak godina bila u drugom planu u odnosu na tumacenja kulture i povijesti, te preispitivanje pitanja proizvodnje i slobode proto?ka znanja. Posvajajuci terminologiju Europske unije, autorica u zakljucku ispostavlja prijedlog uvodjenja?varijabilne kriticnosti? u odnosu na srediste kontinenta. Rijec je o pokusaju uzimanja u obzir i svakog ravnopravnog, ne?represivnog i korisnog susreta sredista i periferije.