Trading with the enemy in Mitrovica, Kosovo. - RUhosting

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
“Sixteen years,
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves.
Desperate men, desperate women divided,
Spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves.
Fortune calls.
I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace”.
-Bob Dylan, Changing of the Guards.
For the past 600 years Albanians and Serbs have lived together in Kosovo. Most of this shared history there
were no issues between them, and historically it's sometimes hard to distinguish between them despite their
different ethnicity, language and partly their religion. This has changed. When Yugoslavia's economy started
to fail in the 1970's ethnic tensions slowly started to rise. This started in Kosovo – Yugoslavia's poorest
region, leading to stronger segregation and later to civil war. Mitrovica, a city in the northern part of Kosovo
located exactly on the river Ibar became a conflict hot spot. Although Mitrovica was a mixed city before the
war, after the war it became a divided one with Albanians living in the part south of the river Ibar and Serbs
living in the north part. This division is nowadays a characteristic of Kosovo: there is no contact between
Albanians and Serbs any more. Mitrovica became a magnifying glass for the Kosovo conflict, as it is known
as the place where most of the inter-ethnic violence happens. Lately, Mitrovica also became known for
something else: inter-ethnic trade. In a society where people not only do not want inter-ethnic contact but are
also punished by their own community for engaging into contact with “the other”, money seems to be the
only thing that can lure people out of their fortifications. These relations between Albanians and Serbs in
Mitrovica and how they can be influenced by inter-ethnic trade are the topic of this thesis.
The idea that “trade brings peace” is not new. Some people date it back to the ancient Greeks, while other
point at Immanuel Kant or Adam Smith as its source. By now the theory – referring to trade and relations
between states - has accumulated a wealth of data in favour of its claim, although there are also critics of it.
Perhaps more importantly, this liberal theory has influenced western policy makers who pursued better
relations with other states strongly since the end of the Second World War. It has even on occasion
influenced western policy makers in the Balkans who tried to achieve better relations between the different
ethnic groups after the violent conflicts of the 90s (Andreas, 2004). This may be a bit premature since no
research has been conducted yet on the pacifying effect of trade on relations between inter-ethnic groups.
There may be a huge amount of research and analysis' conducted on the “trade brings peace” theory, but this
was all aimed at relations between states, never between ethnic groups. Since so little is known so far, this
research will have a more exploratory character.
The specific context of this study is Kosovo's divided town Mitrovica, located in northern Kosovo. Mitrovica
is a complex city where every-day life is shaped by politics and inter-ethnic relations. Most people's main
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