Hospitality, Humanitarianism & Fragmented Governance - An Ethnographic Study of Local Responses to Migration in Bihac, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Master's thesis submitted at the Department of Social Anthropology, spring 2025.

By: Damir Botic
Supervisor: Professor Synnøve Bendixsen

This thesis explores how the local population in the small northwestern city of Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, responded to individuals traveling through the city on their way to different parts of Europe, particularly the European Union member states. The data for this study was gathered through six months of ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation. Following the emergence of the contemporary Balkan migration route, Bihac became a bottleneck for people on the move, attracting the presence of the International Organization for Migration, humanitarian non-governmental organizations, international bodies monitoring border violence, and researchers. The involvement of the state in facilitating migration appeared largely absent, leaving the responsibility for the well-being of both migrants and the local population to local communities.

By speaking with local politicians who held positions of power at various levels of authority during the period when the highest numbers of individuals passed through the area, this study investigates some of the mechanisms that hindered effective migration governance according to the locals´ expectations. Support for migrants primarily relied on local hospitality and the efforts of humanitarian organizations. The analysis of humanitarian practices in this study draws on the data gathered through observations of the work of two non-governmental organizations that provided assistance to people on the move: the Red Cross and the Jesuit Refugee Service.

The thesis critically examines processes of othering and the ways in which distinctions between migrants, tourists, and diaspora shaped local responses and practices of inclusion or exclusion. The findings suggest that in the absence of coordinated state intervention, local hospitality and humanitarian organizations filled the gaps and emerged as pragmatic and improvised responses to an enduring state of uncertainty. However, these responses were marked by moral ambivalence and selective welcoming, often influenced by perceived economic potential and visual markers of difference.