ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a story that shows how the Balkan war between July 1991 and early 19961 was, both directly and indirectly, a global catastrophic event. Philosophical hermeneutics was particularly valuable in this study to explore how the understandings generated about Serbian Australians were shaped by social, historical and interactive processes. The chapter examines historical values associated with ethnicity and geographical borders in its exploration into the cultural impact and interpretation of mass destruction and the dislocation of people and property in the Balkans. It selectively reviews the experiences of Serbian Australians during the Balkan war. One central argument throughout the study is that international events create and perpetuate an intimacy between subject and observer that present the globe as single social space. The chapter outlines both the mechanisms for data generation as well as the substantive issues that arose in interaction with Serbian Australians.
