Conceptualizing informal practices as solidarity-chains – Diasporas coming into existence

Abstract

During the 1990s, informal trade – or šverc - was wide-spread in the former Yugoslav rump state. Th e following article conceptualizes the mechanisms behind the establishment of informal markets in light of ‘legal failure’ in Novi Pazar, Serbia, where informality produced an alternative, transnational connotation of belonging, leading to a ‘competition between law and social norms’. Trading thus served the purpose of a safety net that generated new and renewed social ties with the diaspora in Turkey, and the Turkish state writ large.

Keywords

• informal practices
• diaspora
• memory
• belonging
• transnational practices
• solidarity