Making Place, Making Self: Refugee and Squatter Neighborhoods in Belgrade and Sofia, 1919-1945

• In Event: Crossing Borders/Border Crossings: Im/Mobility in the Post-Ottoman Balkans

Abstract

This paper discusses refugee and squatter neighborhoods in Belgrade and Sofia between the two world wars. Created through wartime displacement, informal housing shaped the two cities’ trajectory in the interwar period. Residents of these neighborhoods fashioned themselves by shaping their urban surroundings, and consequently the city as whole. Bringing a history of refugee and squatter place-making in conversation with displacement, the paper makes the case for the study of how displaced people settle.

Author

• Milos Jovanovic, UCLA