The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges in Post-Yugoslav Censuses*

Objectives To understand the politics of population census in postconflict countries and salience of the categories imposed through census. By doing so, it seeks to shed light on the mechanisms of identity construction in the post-Yugoslav context. Methods The article analyzes the categories and the responses to post-Yugoslav censuses, focusing on national, religious, and linguistic identity markers. Results The analysis shows that a varying, yet significant, share of the population refuses to identify according to the identity markers proposed by the state and promoted by key political actors. Conclusion The article proposes a novel way of studying censuses and argues that even in a postconflict context national identities are less fixed than often supposed and highlights the need to focus more on nonconformist identities in postconflict settings.