CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Gajic, Jelena |
|---|---|
| Title | The Street Magazine LiceUlice: A Safety Net and a Platform for Social Activism in Serbia |
| Summary | This research aims to examine the role of the street magazine LiceUlice, both as a platform for social activism and as a safety net for marginalised groups. These two issues are explored via the discourse analysis of the magazine, and via unstructured interviews with the magazine employees and vendors. By examining the magazine’s writings, this research illuminates their notions of poverty, homelessness, social inclusion, the role of the state and other safety net institutions. It sheds a new light on how the magazine is used as a platform for opening the questions on discrimination, poverty and mental health issues not discussed in the mainstream media. As such, the magazine serves as a tool for subversive social activism. However, this research also shows that despite the often radical rhetoric, the magazine still implies neoliberal work ethic on its vendors. The interviews with the magazine employees uncover troubling situation with the state institutions and the collapse of the safety net, and the attempts that the magazine is doing to offer support to its vendors. Such support often goes beyond a basic selling training, taking the role of the missing state institutions particularly regarding various trainings for job search and mental health support. Finally, the interviews with the vendors question the market model imposed on them, and ideas of sale efficiency as a mean to improve their social condition during the post-socialist transformation. I argue that the magazine LiceUlice is a valuable platform for both, social activism and support of its vendors, but it also reveals the extent of the neoliberal devastation of the state social institutions, overwhelming poverty and social stratification, and insecurity and risk that marginalised groups face daily in Serbia. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram Prem Kumar, Kowalski Alexandra |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/gajic_jelena.pdf |
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