Notions of Return and Belonging in the Sandžak: Why Belonging Matters for Reintegration and Societal Participation

Clara Schmitz-Pranghe, Dilek Üstünalan and Albina Ujkanović

August 2026

Among the factors shaping return and (re)integration, researchers increasingly recognise emotional and social dimensions as crucial (e.g. Ibričević, 2024; Arhin-Sam, 2019; Lundgren, 2016). But belonging matters not only for returnees’ own (re)integration and socio–political participation; It also shapes social relations within receiving communities. This contribution draws on qualitative research with returnees in the Sandžak—a historical region in south-western Serbia—and with migrants from Sandžak living in Istanbul. It explores notions of belonging and how these shape (re)integration experiences and the social fabric.

Diversity and Mobility—Two Characteristics Shaping the Socio-political Context

The historical political and cultural region of the Sandžak stretches across the borderlands between present-day south-western Serbia and eastern Montenegro. The term ‘Sandžak’¹  derives from the Ottoman administrative unit, the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, a designation still commonly used in the area. Although the Sandžak has no administrative status today, it remains an important historical, cultural and political reference point.
 

Today, labour migration and circular mobility to Germany, Austria and other European countries continue to shape the region, driven by limited employment, weak infrastructure, corruption and political clientelism. Return has remained limited: it is often coerced or takes the form of circular or pendular mobility rather than permanent return.

Notions of Belonging: Multidimensional and Dynamic 

Returnees frequently highlighted family, neighbourhood, workplace, peer groups and faith-based communities as reference points for belonging and sources of practical support and emotional well-being. Most respondents in Sandžak also referred to an ethno–cultural community. Likewise, co-ethnic and family networks were initially crucial for Sandžakli in Turkey entering the labour market given limited state support and experiences of othering. Today, however, respondents in both Sandžak and Turkey regard political affiliation and clientelism as more important for finding employment and taking part in social and political life. Respondents did not always mention only one community as an anchor of belonging; sometimes several applied at the same time. For instance, children of ‘mixed marriages’ sometimes struggled with the gap between self-identification and others’ ethnic ascriptions, while some respondents rejected ethnic categories and identified primarily with the Yugoslav past—a reference point that, however, did not provide access to powerful networks.

For Sandžakli in Turkey, belonging reflects a generational shift from ‘split’ to ‘merged’ identities. Older migrants often retain an emotional attachment to a vanished multicultural Yugoslavia and an idealised Sandžak. For younger generations, Bosniak heritage functions more as family or cultural history than as a national or political reference, and their everyday language has shifted increasingly towards Turkish.

In Sandžak, many interviewees also stressed that ethnic and civic belonging are compatible. Bosniaks’ comparatively strong civic identification may be linked to their involvement in central government politics despite the region’s economic and infrastructural marginalisation. Their numbers, local-majority status in municipalities such as Novi Pazar and absence of major language barriers may make it easier for them to take part at the national level. At the same time, some respondents felt alienated from Serbia.

Spatial belonging was another important dimension: Many returnees pointed to Sandžak itself—as a region, cultural space and social environment—as a central reference point, anchored by vibrant social life and strong family ties. Belonging was also translocal, especially among those who had spent much of their lives abroad: Attachments extended across borders, and returnees retained ties to both Sandžak and their places of migration. The diaspora in Turkey likewise remains sentimentally attached to Sandžak, although few still aspire to return there physically. Aspirations are no longer directed ‘back’ towards Serbia or Montenegro, but rather ‘forward’: Some families are seeking dual citizenship, not as a step towards repatriation but as a way to secure EU mobility and better educational and professional prospects for the younger generation.

Navigating Belonging: Access to Social Capital and Socio-political Participation 

The variety of social spaces to which people feel attached—and, most importantly, the overlapping reference points for belonging—matter in two ways: They provide a sense of ‘being part of,’ and they support (re-)integration by letting returnees draw on the social capital of different communities. They also support participation and engagement in social, political, and civic life, across contexts including families, political parties, faith-based communities, organisations and student movements.

Such overlapping forms of belonging can also bridge boundaries reinforced by nationalist discourse and ethno–political polarisation. The protest movement following the 2024 Novi Sad train-station canopy collapse illustrates how civic engagement can transcend ethnic boundaries and help to dismantle them: Students in Novi Pazar actively supported protests in cities including Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš. This joint engagement and solidarity with Novi Pazar’s students drew public attention to a region and a Muslim population that had long been overlooked.

Policy Implications 

Given how important belonging is for individual return and reintegration experiences, and for social capital more broadly, return programming should address these social dimensions by strengthening the integrative capital of receiving communities. We suggest four entry points:

• Strengthen community-based approaches: While maintaining targeted support for vulnerable returnees, reintegration programmes should also invest more in receiving communities: tackling segregation in housing (for example through inclusive social housing schemes) and in employment (through transparent hiring), and expanding shared cultural, youth and recreational spaces where meaningful social contact can happen.
• Support inclusive civil society engagement and education to counter social boundary-making and ethno–religious polarisation: Development cooperation should encourage the Serbian government to expand civic space for inclusive grassroots initiatives and everyday inter-ethnic contact. Educational reform, bilingual education, youth exchanges and cross-regional infrastructure can strengthen shared civic, regional and cultural belonging.
• Recognise returnees as agents of community development: Reintegration programmes should build on returnees’ skills, migration experiences and transnational networks that can strengthen the social fabric, civic life and local development—if given the right support. 
• Address broader structural challenges, including governance and employment: Development cooperation should combine investment in infrastructure and sustainable local industries with stronger support for governance—tackling corruption, clientelism and weak institutions—so as to offer better prospects for the Sandžak’s comparatively very young population. Without addressing these structural challenges, the ethnicisation of political and social tensions will likely continue to obscure the underlying causes of economic hardship and social exclusion.

Final remark: This contribution was written within the qualitative research project “Return and Belonging after Conflict-induced Displacement”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. It draws on interviews conducted between 2022 and 2025 with 47 returnees, stayees and displaced persons in Novi Pazar and Sjenica; 21 experts and institutional or civil-society representatives; and five migrants from Sandžak in Istanbul. The interviews were conducted by the authors with local research partner Anida Mavrić, without whose support this research would not have been possible.

¹ Serbs usually employ the term “Raska” instead, referring to the heartland of the Serbian medieval kingdom of the 12th century and today’s municipality of Raska.

² The Serbian constitution uses the term ‘national minority’. Yet, we would like to distance ourselves from any essentialist understandings of identities. When using ethnic labels in this contribution, we understand them, drawing on Brubaker (2006), as socially and politically constructed categories and as neither fixed, nor primordial or historically immutable (Wimmer, 2008).

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