Contemporary Southeastern Europe 2026, 13 (2)

Introduction: "In, Out and In Between": Migration, Demographic Change, Belonging, and Social Transformation in Southeastern Europe

Migration has long been one of the defining features of Southeast Europe. Few regions in Europe have been as profoundly influenced by the interplay of internal, interregional, transnational, and translocal movements as Southeast Europe. These dynamics of “in, out, and in between” have left an indelible mark on the region’s history, society, and culture.
These processes have a long historical trajectory. Large-scale population movements, including the Migration Period and the Slavic migrations, as well as population displacements associated with Ottoman expansion and rule, repeatedly transformed the region’s demographic and cultural landscape. Pastoral mobility, seasonal and long-term labour migration, and, from the nineteenth century onwards, mass emigration to the Americas became important features of social and economic life. The dissolution of empires and the formation of nation-states brought further population exchanges, expulsions, and forced displacement, while the twentieth century saw additional movements resulting from war, border changes, state-building, and economic transformation. Against this longer history of mobility, the socialist and, particularly, the post-socialist periods marked a new phase in the region’s migration history.
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Robert Pichler

Robert Pichler

Robert Pichler is Head of the Research Group Historical Anthropology at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). His research focuses on migration and mobility, family and kinship, social and political transformations, nation-building, and visual culture in Southeastern Europe, with a particular focus on Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. He is Head of the International Association for Southeast European Anthropology (InASEA) and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Ethnologia Balkanica. His research also includes visual and photographic work, combining historical-anthropological research with documentary and artistic approaches.
 

Danijela Birt Katić

Danijela Birt Katić

Danijela Birt Katić is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, University of Zadar, where she teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels and coordinates the Ethnology and Anthropology programme within the doctoral programme Humanities. Her research interests focus on the anthropology of family and education, digital anthropology, and the study of cultural heritage and communities. She is Editor-in-Chief of Etnološka tribina.
 

Keywords:
Migration Demographic Change Belonging Social Transformation

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