Race in the Balkans: The Case of Erased Residents of Slovenia

Abstract

In this essay we demonstrate that the concepts of race and racism comprise an applicable theoretical framework for understanding the Erasure – when the authorities of newly independent Slovenia erased 25,671 people from the register of permanent residence in 1992 – and particularly for placing it in the wider context of Europeanization and the transition from socialism to a liberal market economy. Taking into account legal, social, political, and economic aspects, we find parallels to other contexts, enabling us to conclude that the Erasure was more than a legal mistake in a nation-state formation. Rather, we see it as a process connected to the Europeanization of Slovenia, since it was partly a result of European migration policies implemented in its territory. Furthermore, by addressing the Erasure through a discourse on race, and in specifically framing it as a process of internal division and systematic exclusion through state institutions, we recognize these exclusions also as a means of extracting wealth, property, and accumulated labour, an integral part of the liberalization of the former communist states.

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