CAS SEE Seminars with Guests: Aida Kapetanović on “The River Guardians: Local Environmental Struggles in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia” in conversation with the RECAS Fellow Josef Djordjevski.

Neoliberal responses to the global climate crisis have spurred a wave of investments in small hydropower plants across the Western Balkans. Spanning hundreds of pristine rivers and streams, these projects faced opposition from inhabitants in peripheral rural areas, gaining support from environmental activists, NGOs, and experts. Exploring the cultural repertoires of the mobilizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, this research aims at understanding the evolution of localized struggles into broader environmental movements. It argues that collective action was triggered by place-based collective identities mediated by locals’ attachment to the rivers. However, in challenging ideas of exclusive local belonging, the River Guardians embraced all those who felt deprived of their rivers, identities, and sovereignty. The rivers emerged as a unifying force propelling a collective struggle for environmental justice.