“Tactical Networks” as Agents of Social Transformation and Cultural Resilience in the Post-yugoslav Region

Abstract

In the context of the post-Yugoslav region, arts and culture organizations in the civil sector are still facing challenges in achieving sustainability, since critique of the dominant system of values is a part of their social engagement. Inadequate financial and organizational conditions for the work of the independent cultural scene are drivers of its engagement in cultural policy and political action, mostly through intensive collaborative platforms and tactical networks that promote the critical function of culture in social production. Based on two different examples of tactical networks, one from Serbia, the other from Croatia, this article detects different uses of strategic essentialism (Gayatri Spivak) as well as these strategies’ consequences for the sustainability and resilience of these tactical networks.