Home Is Where the Heart Is: A Story of Emigration from Serbia to the EU

Speaker: Prof. Danica Šantić, University of Belgrade

10 October 2017, 12 noon to 2 p.m.

Please register at: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/event/23689

The Republic of Serbia is a country with a long tradition of emigration, with specific economic political, religious, cultural context and significant number of people living abroad. Although a comprehensive census of Serbian diasporas and Serbs in the region has never been conducted, it is estimated that this emigrant community today counts around 5 million people. One of the main characteristics of this particular diaspora is heterogeneous geographical distribution, with the majority being in Western Europe, North America and Australia. Also, Serbia is one of the largest remittance-recipient countries in the world. The Serbian diaspora possesses immense untapped economic potential and is an important factor in improving economic ties between origin and destination countries. It has the potential to contribute to countries’ economies and overall development, not only through the positive impacts of remittances but also through the transfer of know-how acquired abroad and possibly through the migrants’ return to their home country.

Danica is an Assistant Professor at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Geography, Serbia. Her main fields of research are migration and population geography, in the first place distribution characteristics, forms of spatial structures, connections and relationships between demographic elements, and other spatial systems as dynamic and temporally variable categories. Her current research centers on integrating migration into the academic curricula in Serbia, and developing international networks ’’Migration, interconectivity and regional development’’ and ’’West Balkan migration network’’. In empirical terms her recent work has been focused on Balkan migration route and on Serbian diaspora.