Constructing identities and building borders: travelling across the Balkans

This summer I took a road trip with some friends to a sometimes forgotten region of Europe: the Balkans, or West Balkans, to be more precise. The facts that I don’t know exactly what to call it, and that people often responded with uncertainty when I told them where I was going, are indicative of the confusion and misconceptions associated with this particular area of Europe.

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“We Must Take Sides” – The Ongoing Struggle for Montgomery’s Past

Montgomery, Alabama is a city of real struggle. Everywhere you turn there are plaques, information boards, murals, memorials, and statues, dragging the tourist gaze back to the South’s tumultuous past. Walking around the city, it is hard not to feel deeply affected by both the gruesome and truly heroic stories which have come to shape the state and the country.

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