Ana Croegaert’s Bosnian Refugees in Chicago: Gender, Performance, and Post-War Economies provides a rich, multi-faceted portrait of Bosnian refugee life in early 21st century Chicago. It documents individuals’ struggles to come to terms with the injuries of war, ethnic violence, and displacement in the former Yugoslavia, focusing in particular on women’s efforts to create domesticity and social connection. Drawing on intimate observations and interviews in homes, coffee shops and public spaces, as well as analysis of social media, public events, and artistic expression,Bosnian Refugees in Chicago provides a deeply moving and politically astute account of the “refugee” experience in an era of austerity politics and heightened racial tension in the United States.

Jane Collins, University of Wisconsin

This book should prove accessible and engaging to broader audiences—perhaps especially for 1.5- and second-generation Bosnian Americans and those who have become intertwined in our families—as well as specialists in diaspora studies, U.S. refugee resettlement, human rights, and whiteness studies.

Gender and Society

This book is a welcome and valuable contribution to the literature on Bosnian and other Balkan diasporas and to broader diaspora studies. It will appeal to social and cultural anthropologists, economic anthropologists, scholars of migration and diaspora, and scholars specializing in the region as well as to members of the Bosnian diaspora in the United States.

American Ethnologist

Bosnian Refugees in Chicago demonstrates an exceptional and well-written ethnographic analysis that moves, like Bosnian refugees themselves, between different countries, spheres, and political contexts.

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology