Kin City: ZBOR

Balkans as Mining Colony? Rebooting Urban Eco-Struggles ZBOR (Združeni Balkanski Otpor i Rad) is a word with many layers of meaning for the people of the former Yugoslav countries. Most simply, it means gathering or assembly, and as such it is known in villages throughout the region. However, the Climate Justice and Just Transition Initiative ZBOR specifically evokes the meaning(s) from the days of Yugoslavia’s anti-fascist revolutionary liberation movement and socialist years, when ZBOR was the fundamental institution of direct democracy and self-management. ZBOR was a vital everyday democratic practice in every factory, organization, apartment block, school, workplace. ZBOR is a place and time where anything can happen. Today, the word is often reduced to the meaning of chorus, but the ZBOR initiative embraces this contemporary usage as well – as one of its main goals is to gather the voices of the many for our common world and time. In their “Kin City” talk, the participants of the ZBOR initiative spoke about the founding of their initiative at the BG conference “Allied Grounds” (2023) and the first larger gathering they organized in the summer of 2024, bringing together many urban folks in a designated mining area in rural Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally discussed their concerns, demands, and ideas for future action. The sixth panel of the conference at the “Kin City” festival took place on October 17, 2024 at the ZK/U – Center for Arts and Urbanistics. You can listen to the recording by clicking on the play button above. More information about the “Kin City” festival: https://berlinergazette.de/projects/kin-city