Where I’m From: Beograd
Current Hometown: Vancouver, BC
Favorite Balkan Song: I’m a big fan of Goran Bregovic, Bjelo Dugme, and Yugo rock in general! More recently, Balkanka by Senidah. Also can’t get “Loco Loco” from Eurovision out of my brain….it’s so catchy!
Favorite Balkan Dish: Ćevapi and brodet
1. Can you start off by telling us a little bit more about yourself? Where are you originally from and where are you currently living?
I was born in Beograd. I’m culturally Serbian but I identify more with being Balkan because I have mixed roots. I come from a Croatian grandmother, a Macedonian grandfather, and a half Greek-half Serbian grandmother. There’s some Turkish and other Balkans sprinkled in there if I go further back as well. Both my parents identified as Yugoslavs until the wars, so the way they put it, we’re Balkan but culturally Serbian because that’s where they largely grew up. My last name, Petrovic, which very distinctly links me to the Balkans (specifically to Croatia or Serbia) was actually a fluke. My family name was a Macedonian name until a couple of generations ago. I bring up those lineages partly because they are all a part of me and also to illustrate how complex identity can be in the Balkans.
We came to Canada when I was two years old and I grew up in Vancouver, BC, where I still live. I completed my MA in counseling psychology and I’m a therapist, working mainly with survivors of sexualized violence, as well as in reproductive health. My MA thesis topic was about Balkan identity and intergenerational trauma. I always struggled with my identity in different ways and grappled with that so that’s sort of what led me to do the research I did after realizing there was virtually nothing on the topic.
2. When did you first become interested in counseling psychology? Feel free to mention any notable experiences that could help paint a better picture for our readers.
I chose to major in psychology in my undergrad mainly because out of all the things that interested me, it was the most practical and the most likely to get me a job upon graduation (child of immigrants!). I was initially going to be a forensic psychologist but while I was in school, I ended up getting a job in a transition house for women escaping intimate partner violence. From there, I ended up working largely in the anti-violence field and counseling felt like a natural progression professionally, as a way that I could be better equipped to provide support to survivors of violence.
I was drawn to mental health work because I have had my own mental health struggles and found it was a field that spoke to those experiences. Those experiences also equipped me better to understand what clients may be going through. As for anti-violence, it was actually something I was drawn to because of my cultural and family background, knowing that family violence is so rampant in the Balkans and that there was a history of that in my own family. It was something that I sort of fell into, but once I did, it felt like the place I needed to be.
The more I stay in the field, the more I’m drawn to all the different ways that we can facilitate healing, and the more I’m drawn to the intersections of activism, healing, and community care. I’m very outspoken about a lot of issues and have really thought about how we need different roles in order to cause social change: we need the organizers, the speakers, the artists, and the healers. I have really been finding that so many of my own experiences, passions, and skills fall perfectly into the counseling field, so I guess everything fell into place for this career path for me!
3. Tell us a little bit more about the thesis you completed on Balkan-identity building in diaspora. Can you give us a quick synopsis of your findings (i.e. any recurring patterns, themes, etc.)? Were you surprised by the results and feedback?
It stemmed from my own experiences of being born in Yugoslavia, coming to Canada at a young age, and then sort of struggling with what that identity meant for most of my life. I have spoken to many others who had the same experiences. When I looked into it, there was so much written on Yugoslavia, but I could never find anything that made me feel seen. It was all about the political and historical context, and then a lot of academic work about our parents’ generation, but even that was largely about resettlement and integration into a new home country or there were quantitative measures of PTSD, things like that.
There were some narratives of people’s stories, but also of people who came as adults. And then there was a study here or there that mentioned children or youth, but nothing that really looked at the long-term impacts of that experience. Yugoslavia seemed like a hot topic for a while and then the research sort of disappeared in the last 10 or 15 years. There’s this whole generation that’s grown up in that time which is kind of forgotten in the shuffle, but we were around for all of it.
My research specifically looked at women from the former Yugoslavia who had been under 10 years old when they came to Canada. So, essentially, people who had grown up in Canada and had for all intents and purposes integrated perfectly. What were their experiences of growing up? How did they form identity? I also drew on Balkan oral tradition and used a narrative and storied approach that would allow participants to form healing narratives about their experiences. I should note that for the purposes of the research, I had to look at a very specific sample, but the findings are certainly relevant for people born in the diaspora as well and I know that the essence of the experiences is relevant to Balkan diasporic people of all genders.
What I argue is that people growing up in the diaspora experience a balkanization of identity. Balkanization is originally a geo-political term meaning countries, regions, or nation states that separate or are torn apart by conflict or violence. It can have a bit of a negative connotation too. It has been used since then in other ways, but the way I use it is to describe the fragmentation of identity through trauma and conflict, usually through external forces we have little to no control over. In Balkan people growing up in the diaspora, that occurs through conflict-generated diaspora/migration, intergenerational balkanization of identity (so, our parents growing up in Yugoslavia and then having to choose a new identity), and intergenerational trauma. For the population I looked at, who are women, that also happens through patriarchal violence, so histories of family violence for example.
What I found was that identity was relational and transgenerational, it was rooted in historical and political contexts, and it was dynamic and uncertain. None of this was surprising and was consistent with the familial and collective nature of Balkan culture, as well as the historical and political context in which the participants exist. The main themes that came up were diasporic identity and belonging (so, belonging to the country of birth, the country they grew up — in this case, Canada — as well as belonging to the diasporic community in Canada). A big factor in belonging was language. Many people felt they didn’t know the language well enough or if they did, they had a Canadian accent that set them apart. Another big theme was the transmission of identity and trauma through family.
Here, a lot of participants talked about family secrets or silences (things that weren’t talked about) and also the fragmentation of family. This might have been due to distance, ethnic tensions, family conflicts, or family violence. The participants talked a lot about ethnic or national categories and how they struggled to define themselves within those. Big areas around that were cultural practices and religion. Then health was a really big one too. Participants talked about connecting to culture through folk remedies and that was something that set them apart from their Canadian-born friends. They also talked about mental health and addiction in their families as well, and the generational and cultural differences in how those things were viewed.
I really tried to make it about the people and not the political events, because I feel like in the Balkans, people have been lost a lot in the political conversations. But what surprised me — but probably shouldn’t have — is that the politics are inescapable parts of people’s identity, whether they want them to be or not. One of the participants even said” “What is there past this? Our identity is war.”
One of the big themes was the politicization of identity, where broader political contexts were frequently applied to people’s identities. For example, being asked to be a “spokesperson” for the region and speak on topics like Kosovo or explaining to people why Yugoslavia fell apart. Or the application of the macro-level on the individual, so people assuming that because you’re one ethnic group, you must hate other ethnic groups. Another surprising theme was that people often felt that ethnic and national categories were so uncertain and ever-changing so they would identify with other, more tangible parts of their identity over their cultural identity. For example, people might identify with hobbies, relational roles, or jobs over ethnicity because those were places that they had more choice in how they defined themselves, rather than being defined by historical and political contexts that they had no control over.
4. When we talk about diaspora we often talk about the struggle of “being too American/Canadian for our homeland” and then “too [insert nationality here] for the United States/Canada,” but I believe there’s more to be explored here. This is not the only identity struggle we are faced with, as there are often times where we question where we exactly fit in within the Balkan diaspora specifically. Can you explain how identity is fragmented within the diaspora?
Absolutely, I think many of us struggle with not quite fitting in anywhere, which is pretty typical for many people from immigrant backgrounds. With that, for example, language is a big piece and so are cultural practices. There are unique things that we associate with the Balkan side. For example, home remedies or certain celebrations. So, those kinds of things, the language or “complicated” names or cultural practices are things that we might have in common with others from immigrant backgrounds.
I would say that the Balkan diaspora has some specific pieces that might also complicate that sense of belonging. One thing that came up in my research was the politicization of identity and nationalism in some diasporic communities that often made it difficult for people to find their place in a diasporic community. So people might try and build a cohesive sense of identity only to be met by nationalism and the very hatred that their families tried to escape. We’ll touch on this later, but that’s particularly common for people who might come from families of multi-ethnic background, which is very common in the diaspora.
Many people experience diasporic ethnic enclaves as holding a specific set of values or beliefs, which may sometimes be traditional and/or nationalist. And yet, that can sometimes be our only connection to our country of origin or our culture, so many people growing up in diaspora who may have grown up with other values and other influences may have trouble finding their place in a diasporic community and may have trouble finding like-minded people who also share their cultural background and understanding of that piece. For example, when you spoke about Black Lives Matter on this podcast, it was so refreshing. I have found like-minded people from the Balkan diaspora who also speak out on those topics, but it’s not widely discussed in our communities. And it can even sometimes feel like it’s in opposition to cultural identity. For example, for people who are more traditional and/or nationalist, speaking out about feminism or LGBTQ+ issues are often considered “Western” ideas and in direct opposition to “Balkan values” — despite there being a very rich history of brilliant feminist and queer activists in Yugoslavia.
Another thing is religion. I can’t speak for all diasporic contexts, but my research took place in Vancouver, and here, religion is a much more salient defining piece of identity than it might be in the Balkans. For example, if you’re Serbian in Vancouver and want to learn folklore, go to Serbian school, or attend any cultural events, they are almost exclusively connected to the Orthodox Church. And many people attend church for cultural and community reasons more than for religious reasons. But not everyone will feel safe doing that. We know that the institution of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Serbia is very politically involved and very vocally homophobic and transphobic. So Serbian LGBTQ+ people in the diaspora might not have access to the Orthodox Church and by extension, would not have access to cultural activities in their diasporic community. So I think identity also gets complicated if you belong to a group that is already marginalized, be that an ethnic minority group or being LGBTQ+ or anything like that.
One thing that also came up in the literature was that many folks from Yugoslavia shaped their identity through “trans-localism,” which means that people might identify with their city, village, or region rather than their country of origin which makes sense knowing how diverse the Balkans can be regionally. For example, someone might identify with specifically being from Belgrade, rather than from Serbia. Or someone might identify with being from Hvar or from the Adriatic rather than being from Croatia. For those of us growing up in the diaspora, we don’t have that nuance of identity. We tend to have the Balkan part and then the Canadian/American/whatever part. So then when the diaspora is so flattened here and we’re all “nasi” (ours) or all Serbian or all Bosnian or whatever your diasporic community may look like, that can complicate diasporic cohesion a bit. (side note: it’s interesting because my parents always know exactly what tiny village someone in our community is from, which always blew my mind).
These are just some of the ways that we can find it hard to even fit into the Balkan diaspora, although in my research, participants spoke to so many other ways that they felt they didn’t quite belong in the diasporic community — including not speaking the language as well as others in diaspora, not listening to the same music, etc.
5. How does intergenerational trauma play a factor in fragmenting our Balkan identities?
When we experience trauma, it fragments our sense of self, of our identity, of how we view the world and those around us, of our relationships to those things. When we talk about intergenerational trauma, it’s the experience of trauma being passed on to generations that may have not experienced trauma themselves but feel the impacts. For example, the descendants of Holocaust survivors still show signs of being impacted by that. There has been very little work done on the Yugoslav context, which was a big part of my research. I looked at it as multigenerational trauma, as something that has not only been passed on by our parents from the conflicts of the 1990s, but really each generation has experienced war, be that WW2, WW1, the Balkan Wars, etc. As I was looking specifically at women’s experiences, I also considered the impacts of family violence which is so rampant in the Balkans, as well as the possible impacts of poverty and other things. Something I didn’t really speak to, but that can also be true for some people, is the impact of Communism. Different people had different experiences of Tito’s Yugoslavia.
There is newer epigenetic research that is showing that trauma can be passed on in very tangible ways in our DNA. This is newer research and it’s not really within the scope of my research, but it’s really promising and validating! A lot of the existing research shows that intergenerational trauma is passed on through the silences, the gaps, the omissions. It’s been described as a “phantom” or “ghost,” or as something that hangs in the air but has no name. Essentially, subsequent generations may experience the anxiety, the tension, and other impacts, but not have enough knowledge or understanding to make sense of it or process it. My findings were pretty consistent with the research in this way. Some participants talked about not really knowing any stories or only knowing things vaguely. There were several instances where participants would accidentally find out later in life that they had family members who had been killed or maimed that had never been spoken about. For some, they were afraid to ask about stories or they got some stories from grandparents. For others, even if they may have known some stories, trauma may have manifested in their parents in certain ways: maybe there was a lack of emotional regulation and there was always high conflict in the house, or parents would talk about certain things in a desperate way that more resembled dumping than processing. There are a lot of gaps, silences, or the narratives themselves may be fragmented. Parents might tell the same stories over and over in an attempt to process but never really attaining it. One participant didn’t even know they had come from war until their school teacher asked them to speak about the wars. For others, everything was about the wars but without there being room for processing or understanding.
What this means is that people may carry the trauma but not really be able to make sense of it. They may not really have their family’s stories or know about their history. Or their whole identity may be tied up in the war in a way that doesn’t allow for a more cohesive identity or doesn’t really leave room for more joyful parts of identity. Essentially, what the research shows is that family is the main point of transmission for intergenerational trauma. Well, in diaspora, that’s the main point of transmission of identity and culture as well. We learn who we are culturally from our family. So, if that intergenerational trauma is present, that’s fragmenting our sense of identity and understanding of our culture and our relationship to it. The other thing too is that for many of us who came in the 1990s, our parents were raised in Yugoslavia. Many considered themselves Yugoslavs above anything else and suddenly they were forced to choose a different identity in a violent way, in a way that was in violent opposition to other identities – and if they are multi-ethnic, that violence is exponential. So, we have that intergenerational fragmentation of identity where we are in the diaspora, learning about ourselves and our cultures from family members who themselves are struggling with identity and who may have undergone trauma and/or have inherited trauma themselves. That’s not going to lead to a cohesive sense of identity and self.
6. Have you found that diaspora who come from mixed families have a harder time when it comes to dealing with things like nationalism and politicization of identities? Feel free to provide examples/any scenarios you feel comfortable sharing.
Yes, I think that’s a big component of belonging and can complicate an already complicated identity. I had several participants who were from multi-ethnic backgrounds who found it hard to find their place or to define their identity because they didn’t know where they fit in. Sometimes it was just messy and sometimes it was violently in opposition to one another (e.g. being Serbian and Croatian). I had participants in my study who come from multi-ethnic families and whose extended families stopped speaking to them because of their multi-ethnic family structure. Participants spoke about not being able to find their place, not only in the sense of their immigrant identity, but in diasporic communities. For example, being surrounded by Serbian people and being “not Serbian enough” because of a mixed background. Or not being “Serbian enough” for the Serbians and not being “Croatian enough” for the Croatians, while also not being “Canadian enough.” Several participants had the sense they really didn’t fit in anywhere.
Something else that people talked about was how fluid their identity had to be to accommodate safety. One person, when I asked how she identifies, just said: it depends where I am and who’s asking. This was pretty common, that people might navigate different contexts and feel like they have to present different parts of themselves.
As mentioned earlier, I identify with being Balkan more than anything because my roots are so spread out over the Balkans and I have family all over. For ease, I tend to say I’m Serbian if someone asks, which I also realize has its own set of connotations. I always just had these broad categories of my Canadian side and my Balkan side. And then there have been times in my own extended family where people have wanted me to identify with one side and denounce another in order to sit at dinner with me. It didn’t really cause me any identity crisis or anything like that but it can certainly make you realize that these categories that at first seemed cohesive, like “the Balkan side”, are actually in themselves fragmented.
This is also really common in the diaspora. For example, I have had a number of occasions where I met Balkan people who demanded to know where exactly I was from and were very vocal about their nationalist beliefs. I have had occasions where I have played up or played down certain parts of my background just to avoid conflict or to stay safe, and that’s something that I heard from participants as well. That this politicization of identity and the question of how to identify oneself and to whom can be a question of personal identity, but it can also make them highly visible and can be a question of safety. Several participants spoke to giving different answers when asked where they’re from based on how safe they assessed the situation to be. Sometimes they might even just say they are Canadian, essentially having to choose to in that moment erase or hide their Balkan identity either for comfort (e.g. not having to explain things) or out of safety.
7. What would you say to any Balkan person who has ever said something like, “Why would I pay to go to therapy when I can just sit around and talk about my problems with family and friends?”
I have heard that a lot. First of all, it makes sense to me why Balkan people might not be drawn to it and might see it as a “Western thing.” We come from a collectivist and familial culture and Western psychology can often be very focused on individualism. That being said, I would still encourage people to go. The thing with collectivism when you come from a community with so much trauma is that part of collective healing and liberation comes from also doing our own work so we can show up for one another. There is room for our traditional ways of healing, for community care and collective liberation, AND for our own work that can be facilitated by speaking to a therapist.
I would say that talking to friends or family and talking to a therapist are two distinct things and there is room for both in our healing. Talking to friends, family, and community members can absolutely be helpful and healing, especially when you’re speaking about a shared experience. Sometimes, that can do more for us than therapy. For example, I found in my research that it was very powerful for women growing up in the diaspora to speak to others about that experience because they had few or no opportunities to speak to others who just “got” it. So, that serves a distinct purpose whereas talking to a therapist or other mental health professional can provide you with more insight into experiences and patterns, more tools for coping, and more resources that friends or family may not be equipped to give you.
There’s a misconception that going to a mental health professional is “just talking” but we have so many other tools that can help people process feelings and experiences. There are even kinds of therapy that involve very little talking and still allow you to process experiences. Even when we do talk, we are skilled at listening for certain things and knowing how to guide you through that. A therapist is also removed from your social circles and is bound by confidentiality so you can speak about things freely without them getting out to community members. The other thing is that you get time that is just for you which we don’t typically get with friends and family because most of our relationships require some give and take.
There are a lot of things that you might go to a professional for that you might not rely on friends or family for. For example, people in our lives might not be typically equipped to deal with intense trauma, acute grief, or intense mental health struggles whereas a professional would have the training and expertise to support you with that. Say you have a physical ailment, there are home remedies that might help but you might also go to your doctor. For example, if you feel nauseous, you might make certain teas or you might eat ginger at home and that’s okay. But if the nausea is intense or persistent and impacting your life, you might go to the doctor who will see if there’s an underlying cause, do some tests, and maybe give you some other medication that can help. The same thing goes for mental health. We can talk to our friends and family about things and find it helpful, but when something is persistent and we need a lot more support, it might be good to talk to a professional. For example, if you’re anxious about a big exam, it would be reasonable to talk to a friend about how nervous you are. But if you are always feeling anxious for no particular reason and finding it hard to live your life, a friend wouldn’t be equipped to help you with that. As with physical ailments, mental health concerns are better dealt with earlier rather than later.
Therapy can also be good even if you’re not experiencing a mental health condition. People go to therapy to make huge life decisions, to navigate relationship issues or big life transitions, or sometimes to make sense of something, like identity. There’s a lot of benefit to talking to a professional who is non-judgmental and can support you through tough times in your life. Many of us from the Balkans have been taught that as long as we’re surviving, we’re okay. I really believe that people deserve better than just surviving. People deserve healing that allows them to live life more fully and joyfully.