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Abstract
In this dissertation, in the most general sense, I ask the question: what happens when neoliberal policies dictated by the European Union, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund intervene in a previously (almost) universal state-funded healthcare system? What options does this voracious quest for the accumulation of more capital, to the detriment of one of the poorest populations in Europe, leave for resistance? By collaborating with the network of actors in the diabetes landscape in Serbia—patients-activists, lay persons with diabetes, medical experts, pharmaceutical representatives, and so on—I have grappled with a piece of this puzzle.
The theoretical and ethnographic focus of my dissertation interacts with previous studies of neoliberal restructuring of previously socialist states, as well as the continuous state-building practices through citizens’ encounters with state representatives, such as medical professionals or street-level bureaucrats. I engaged with the body of literature on care as an open-ended process and showed how public (health)care in Serbia can be both harmful and beneficial. To further understand these processes, I analyzed how neoliberal subjectivities—in the context where civil society is greatly shaped according to practices of western NGOs, as well as the imposed austerity measures, which are coupled with impositions of neoliberal subjectivity—are not uncritically adopted by diabetes activists, but can be strategically used in their quests to facilitate mutual aid practices and receive state-sponsored healthcare.