Several consecutive global crises including the collapse of the Socialist bloc the global
economic crisis the COVID-19 pandemic and the current war in Ukraine have put the lives of
citizens of former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union under threat. How do the most
affected amongst them manage to survive global crises? How do their experiences from previous
crises influence their behavior when a new global crisis emerges? Through a unique comparison
of life paths of post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet migrants and their communities across Europe
the Americas and Africa Sanja Tepavcevic offers a novel theoretical approach revealing a
relationship between loyalty to communities and resilience to global crises. For many
post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet migrants the (perception of) exclusion from communities that
they belonged to prior to a crisis tends to reshape their sense of belonging and modifies their
loyalty to and identification with a community or collective identity. These processes
represent psychological and cultural (or ¿soft¿) forms of resilience. Similarly as Tepavcevic
demonstrates greater physical (or ¿tangible¿) resilience shows itself in emigration and the
formation of alternative communities. By combining and analyzing narratives participant
observations and theories of resilience and loyalty borrowed from social behavioral and the
natural sciences Tepavcevic demonstrates that global crises challenge existing communities and
generate various forms of migrant communities loyalty and resilience. Among others social
scientists migration policy-makers and migrants will benefit from reading this book.
