The Guardians of the Rivers: Environmental Struggles in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia

This research investigates the processes through which local struggles evolve into environmental mobilizations in peripheral rural areas of post-socialist contexts, focusing on opposition to small hydro-power plants in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It examines the cultural repertoires of collective action within two movements: the Coalition for the Protection of the Rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Defend the Rivers of Stara Planina. While environmentalism in post-socialist Eastern Europe has predominantly been understood within the framework of civil society, NGOization, and Europeanization processes, this research offers a novel perspective by highlighting mobilizations rooted in rural communities, typically associated with conservativism and nationalism, which involved environmentalists, NGOs, and experts.The research employs frame analysis to explore the issues and motivations that prompted peripheral rural communities to engage in environmental mobilizations and how collective identities were affirmed and transformed through collective action. The methodology includes frame analysis of movements’ cultural activity and semi-structured interviews and is conducted with an ethnographic approach and ethics.Both movements used narratives that facilitated the development of local struggles into broader mobilizations for environmental justice, with contextual nuances tailored to their specific political and cultural environments. The research demonstrates how narratives related to life, democracy, and emotions combined to foster mobilization, and how collective identities based on place and river attachment were affirmed and transformed to challenge notions of exclusivist and nationalist belonging. This study aligns with emerging scholarship from post-socialist Eastern Europe, seeking to integrate local forms of environmentalism within global relations and debates.