ABSTRACT
During the turbulent 1990s, nationalist elites in ex-Yugoslav republics utilized citizenship
policies for the realization of nationalist projects, aiming to create ‘imagined’ ethnically
homogenous polities over an ethnically heterogeneous territory (Hayden, 1996). While
such exclusive policies aimed to integrate and formally include all ethnic-kin into a
new nation-state, at the same time, they promoted the exclusion of unwanted ethnic min-
orities from membership in the polity. Once the violent conflict had transformed ethnic
minorities into refugees, citizenship policies enacted by the nationalizing states estab-
lished impediments to their possible return, hence promoting the newly established
ethnic homogeneity within the boundaries of the state. Meanwhile, for the refugees, reach-
ing the final destination of their flight (their external kin state) did not necessarily lead to
the end of their refugee cycle nor did it lead to their uncontested integration in their host
society.
