Sociology in Serbia

“With extraordinary clarity, the authors present one century of sociology in Serbia. Pioneers and mediators, institutions and reviews, currents and debates, relations with the state and the civil society – nothing escapes their attention. But they accomplish much more than that. The book is also a fascinating journey through Serbian society from 19th to 21th centuries, and an original reflection on the social sciences and the ways social scientists use them, beyond geographic and disciplinary boundaries.”

—Xavier Bougarel, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris

“Sociology came late to the region, and was always the object of political hostility or efforts at political control. Some sociologists resisted, some used the tension to their advantage, but most tried to maintain the autonomy of the field. This book shows how sociologists’ successes and failures at keeping the project alive fed new ideas, new research, and new divisions.”
—Eric Gordy, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London


“The history of sociology in Serbia is full of “false starts, attempts cut short, legacies petering out, memories obliterated, and beginnings from scratch”. It is a story unlike any I know; it is deeply relatable for anyone who cares about the autonomy of social science under political pressures, whether in the center or in the peripheries of our conflict-stricken world.” 
—Marta Bucholc, Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw/Centre de recherche en science politique, Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles
This book represents the first comprehensive century-long history of the disciplinary development of sociology in Serbia in English. It provides an overview of the constitution of sociology as an academic discipline during the interwar period, its reinstitutionalization after World War II in entirely new social circumstances marked by establishment of self-management socialism in Yugoslavia, and finally its development during the turbulent postsocialist period. Divided into five chapters, the focus of the book is on the challenges that sociology has faced in order to maintain its institutional position, gain adequate social recognition, and preserve its professional autonomy. Relying on Bourdieu's concept of the academic field and Burawoy's typology of Professional, Critical, Public and Policy sociology, the book seeks to answer the question of how the sociological academic field in Serbia has been constituted, structured and restructured, and in which of these roles sociology has dominantly appeared in different phases of its evolution.