“Wastelanding” Heritage on the Margins: Reflections from the Cases of the Sorbs in Lusatia and the Vlachs in the Timok Valley

This article adopts a comparative focus on two European borderlands, that of the Sorbs in Germany and that of the Vlachs in Serbia. It identifies three dimensions of marginalization that precede the loss of ecoculturally diverse landscapes through the expansion of mining activities: linguistic difference, border proximity, and the element of a rural culture. The article argues that these are part of a discourse that aims to legitimize the processes of “wastelanding”, that is the deliberate destruction of minority heritage through environmental degradation.