In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, interest in care, health, and wellbeing resurged  across  various disciplines. We are interested in how anthropology has responded to new care realities in the Balkans. These follow both the pandemic and the neoliberal restructuring of the last decades. By looking at the resulting fragmentation of care in the Balkans, this conference aims to move away from the  dichotomous frameworks of Balkanism (Todorova, 2009) to rethink the Balkans as a site of knowledge production that has more to offer than just “catching up” with the West. What theoretical and methodological issues do anthropologists face in their research in the Balkans? How do people in the Balkans relate to one another within caring relationships themselves? What does care look like in practice and what does it entail? How are caring relationships shaped and changed? How do these experiences and relationships inform or challenge broader theoretical concerns?

We see this conference as a step towards building a network of anthropologists working on the issues of care in the Balkans.