At Home With Medical Anthropology in the Former Yugoslavia

The article traces the development of medical anthropology in the former Yugoslav region, highlighting how the discipline has evolved through the legacies of social medicine and socialist self-management and, in recent decades, as a response to neoliberal trends in healthcare. The authors understand this region as a site of epistemic resistance and creativity, where scholars respond to shifting healthcare landscapes by rethinking the boundaries between critique and care, theory and practice. Drawing on a wealth of regional references and field experiences, the article offers both a historical and conceptual grounding for this special issue of Svetovi/Worlds, framing medical anthropology in the Balkans as simultaneously local and transnational, reflexive and politically engaged.