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The banal nationalism of bankomats in the Balkans

ORCiD logo with link | University of Rijeka, Croatia
Published online: 15 May 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00132.ken
Abstract
This is a linguistic anthropological study on quotidian human-artifact interaction and language ideology manifest on ATM language selection screens. It is a comparative study conducted in a small region in the former Yugoslavia at the meeting point of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro, where the linguistic differences are minimal, and the political, ideological, state, and institutional distinctions are pronounced. This article aims to use the specificities of this linguistic landscape to make visible an ideological layer that is present (yet invisible) elsewhere in the world, drawing attention to political, ideological, and territorial aspects of everyday language identification that are already common knowledge to many people in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, yet go unnoticed elsewhere.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.About the field site
  • 3.The ATMs of Dubrovnik
  • 4.The ATMs of Herceg Novi
  • 5.The ATMs of Trebinje
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (37)
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