Marek Mikuš
Biographic Data
| ID | 135496 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marek Mikuš |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marek |
| FAMILY NAME | Mikuš |
| SIGNATURE | MIKUŠ M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5272-5183 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 61 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Managing problem debt in Europe: Introduction to the theme section
This introduction to the theme section proposes the concept of problem debt, understood as household debt deviating from actors’ and institutionalized norms about its course, and presents a relational and historical realist approach focused on the practices of marking and managing problem debt. We discuss key emic perspectives on problem debt, agencies directly involved in its management (debt apparatuses), and the interaction of varied understan…
Veliki i mali: Uvođenje eura i nacionalna valuta u Hrvatskoj
Ovaj članak razmatra hrvatski javni diskurs o uvođenju eura iz perspektive dvaju polja istraživanja antropologije novca i financija: uloge diskursa u toj sferi društvenog života i slojevite i raznolike prirode valute, uključujući euro kao primjer njezinih suvremenih transformacija. Studija taj diskurs ujedno situira i u političko-ekonomski kontekst nejednakosti valuta. Ključni je nalaz da su taj diskurs obilježili hegemonistički narativi koji su …
Tracking Mortgage Pathways in Zagreb: Everyday Economics of Debt, Housing Wealth, and Debtors’ Agency in a European Semiperiphery
Drawing on a case study of mortgage debt in Zagreb, Croatia, this article argues that the anthropology of household debt should engage more deeply with its economic implications and uses for debtors. It contributes novel insights from an understudied Eastern European setting to the Anglophone-centric debates on housing wealth and the financialization of subjectivity. The original mortgage pathways approach uses repeat interviews to track individu…
Introduction: Boom, crisis and politics of Swiss franc mortgages in Eastern Europe: comparing trajectories of dependent financialization of housing
This Special Feature is the first regional and holistic comparative study of Swiss franc (CHF) mortgages in Eastern Europe from the mid-2000s up to now. We examine this form of lending as a critical mechanism of the dependent financialization of housing in the region and look at its political and class-based repercussions in the four most significant national cases: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Serbia. This introduction reviews and connects the s…
Moral economies of housing in post-boom Croatia: Swiss franc loans crisis and politics of housing financialization
This paper traces the Croatian Swiss franc loans crisis and debtors’ movement in the context of the wider politics of housing finance after the 2000s credit and housing boom. The movement mainly contested Swiss franc loans through litigation and demands for regulation of predatory lending practices. This selective and institutional articulation of the issue reflected the urban middle-class background of the movement’s constituency and its ambival…
Making sense of the financialization of households: State of the Art and Beyond
Building on, and going beyond, the state-of-the-art literature, this article aims to advance the analysis and conceptualization of the financialization of households. It argues that there is a need to better conceptualize the household and that the relations between households and other actors in financialized capitalism require further elaboration. Its contribution rests on providing a high-level review of literature and on proposing a relationa…
New' but 'Squeezed: Middle Class and Mortgaged Homeownership in Croatia
Some recent anthropological accounts of middle classes centred on their indebted home-ownership. They stressed its two contrastive logics fitting a wider binary - exposing 'squeezed' middle classes in the global North to increasing risks, and supporting the ascent of their 'new' counterparts in the South. The genealogy of middle-class housing debt in Croatia presented in this article reveals another, post-socialist trajectory where mundane and op…
The Anthropology of Financialization in Eastern Europe
Initially understood as a narrowly economic process of financial expansion, the concept of financialization has expanded to describe the increasing power of financial actors, practices, logics, and narratives in various domains of social life and the resulting transformations. Anthropologists study financialization as a polyvalent social process that works in and through social relations and encompasses financial expansion and penetration as well…
Contesting household debt in Croatia: The double movement of financialization and the fetishism of money in Eastern European peripheries
Frontiers of Civil Society
In Serbia, as elsewhere in postsocialist Europe, the rise of “civil society” was expected to support a smooth transformation to Western models of liberal democracy and capitalism. More than twenty years after the Yugoslav wars, these expectations appear largely unmet. Frontiers of Civil Society asks why, exploring the roles of multiple civil society forces in a set of government “reforms” of society and individuals in the early 2010s, and examini…
Frontiers of Civil Society: Government and Hegemony in Serbia
Frontiers of Civil Society: Government and Hegemony in Serbia
In Serbia, as elsewhere in postsocialist Europe, the rise of 'civil society' was expected to support a smooth transformation to Western models of liberal democracy and capitalism. More than twenty years after the Yugoslav wars, these expectations appear largely unmet. Frontiers of Civil Society asks why, exploring the roles of multiple civil society forces in a set of government `reforms' of society and individuals in the early 2010s, and examini…
"Gramsci, Ethnography, and "Class
Between recognition and redistribution: Disability, (human) rights, and struggles over welfare in Serbia
This article analyses the discourse surrounding, implementation of, and struggles over the new disability policy in Serbia to show how its founding principles of human rights became partially co-opted by neoliberal welfare restructuring. As a result, it sought to make disabled people not only equal but also economically 'independent' in the sense of relying on wage labour instead of welfare. Owing to its inadequate assumptions and instruments, th…
The justice of neoliberalism: Moral ideology and redistributive politics of public-sector retrenchment in Serbia
This article seeks to contribute to the anthropological analysis of neoliberalism as a hegemonic project of capitalist social transformation through a close examination of the ideological legitimation of austerity-driven public-sector retrenchment in Serbia. It shows how long-term continuities of political economy and public discourse create opportunities for market populist elites to sell neoliberalism as a moral project. Persistent structural c…
Informal networks and interstitial arenas of power in the making of civil society law in Serbia
This paper adopts an anthropological perspective on law to examine the social processes surrounding the making of a set of recent civil society laws in Serbia. In line with the dominant liberal assumptions about civil society involvement as a way of making policy- and law-making more representative and democratic, there has been significant civil society participation in these legal reforms. Their stated aim was to bring greater ?efficiency? and …
Indigenizing "civil society" in Serbia What local fund-raising reveals about class and trust
This article reconsiders established anthropological knowledge about postsocialist "civil society" through an analysis of recent efforts of Serbian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reduce their dependence on foreign donors and develop "local fund-raising" from individuals and businesses. These initiatives had to address widespread suspicion toward NGOs, which confirms earlier findings about their donor-driven origins and the class divide b…
State Pride”: Politics of LGBT Rights and Democratisation in “European Serbia”
This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the…
State Pride”: Politics of LGBT Rights and Democratisation in “European Serbia”
This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the…
The justice of neoliberalism: Moral ideology and redistributive politics of public-sector retrenchment in Serbia
This article seeks to contribute to the anthropological analysis of neoliberalism as a hegemonic project of capitalist social transformation through a close examination of the ideological legitimation of austerity-driven public-sector retrenchment in Serbia. It shows how long-term continuities of political economy and public discourse create opportunities for market populist elites to sell neoliberalism as a moral project. Persistent structural c…
Contesting household debt in Croatia: The double movement of financialization and the fetishism of money in Eastern European peripheries
Making sense of the financialization of households: State of the Art and Beyond
Building on, and going beyond, the state-of-the-art literature, this article aims to advance the analysis and conceptualization of the financialization of households. It argues that there is a need to better conceptualize the household and that the relations between households and other actors in financialized capitalism require further elaboration. Its contribution rests on providing a high-level review of literature and on proposing a relationa…
New' but 'Squeezed: Middle Class and Mortgaged Homeownership in Croatia
Some recent anthropological accounts of middle classes centred on their indebted home-ownership. They stressed its two contrastive logics fitting a wider binary - exposing 'squeezed' middle classes in the global North to increasing risks, and supporting the ascent of their 'new' counterparts in the South. The genealogy of middle-class housing debt in Croatia presented in this article reveals another, post-socialist trajectory where mundane and op…
Tracking Mortgage Pathways in Zagreb: Everyday Economics of Debt, Housing Wealth, and Debtors’ Agency in a European Semiperiphery
Drawing on a case study of mortgage debt in Zagreb, Croatia, this article argues that the anthropology of household debt should engage more deeply with its economic implications and uses for debtors. It contributes novel insights from an understudied Eastern European setting to the Anglophone-centric debates on housing wealth and the financialization of subjectivity. The original mortgage pathways approach uses repeat interviews to track individu…
Introduction: Boom, crisis and politics of Swiss franc mortgages in Eastern Europe: comparing trajectories of dependent financialization of housing
This Special Feature is the first regional and holistic comparative study of Swiss franc (CHF) mortgages in Eastern Europe from the mid-2000s up to now. We examine this form of lending as a critical mechanism of the dependent financialization of housing in the region and look at its political and class-based repercussions in the four most significant national cases: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Serbia. This introduction reviews and connects the s…
Moral economies of housing in post-boom Croatia: Swiss franc loans crisis and politics of housing financialization
This paper traces the Croatian Swiss franc loans crisis and debtors’ movement in the context of the wider politics of housing finance after the 2000s credit and housing boom. The movement mainly contested Swiss franc loans through litigation and demands for regulation of predatory lending practices. This selective and institutional articulation of the issue reflected the urban middle-class background of the movement’s constituency and its ambival…
Indigenizing "civil society" in Serbia What local fund-raising reveals about class and trust
This article reconsiders established anthropological knowledge about postsocialist "civil society" through an analysis of recent efforts of Serbian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reduce their dependence on foreign donors and develop "local fund-raising" from individuals and businesses. These initiatives had to address widespread suspicion toward NGOs, which confirms earlier findings about their donor-driven origins and the class divide b…
Between recognition and redistribution: Disability, (human) rights, and struggles over welfare in Serbia
This article analyses the discourse surrounding, implementation of, and struggles over the new disability policy in Serbia to show how its founding principles of human rights became partially co-opted by neoliberal welfare restructuring. As a result, it sought to make disabled people not only equal but also economically 'independent' in the sense of relying on wage labour instead of welfare. Owing to its inadequate assumptions and instruments, th…
State Pride”: Politics of LGBT Rights and Democratisation in “European Serbia”
This article analyses from an anthropological perspective the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, the first state-supported Parade in Serbia, as a part of the building of a democratic and European Serbian nation. In their discursive framing of the Parade and making claims on the state to take it under its auspices, the organising NGOs bound the event to the EU integration process of Serbia. This policy link helped them forge a political alliance with the…
Informal networks and interstitial arenas of power in the making of civil society law in Serbia
This paper adopts an anthropological perspective on law to examine the social processes surrounding the making of a set of recent civil society laws in Serbia. In line with the dominant liberal assumptions about civil society involvement as a way of making policy- and law-making more representative and democratic, there has been significant civil society participation in these legal reforms. Their stated aim was to bring greater ?efficiency? and …
Indigenizing "civil society" in Serbia What local fund-raising reveals about class and trust
This article reconsiders established anthropological knowledge about postsocialist "civil society" through an analysis of recent efforts of Serbian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reduce their dependence on foreign donors and develop "local fund-raising" from individuals and businesses. These initiatives had to address widespread suspicion toward NGOs, which confirms earlier findings about their donor-driven origins and the class divide b…
The justice of neoliberalism: Moral ideology and redistributive politics of public-sector retrenchment in Serbia
This article seeks to contribute to the anthropological analysis of neoliberalism as a hegemonic project of capitalist social transformation through a close examination of the ideological legitimation of austerity-driven public-sector retrenchment in Serbia. It shows how long-term continuities of political economy and public discourse create opportunities for market populist elites to sell neoliberalism as a moral project. Persistent structural c…
Frontiers of Civil Society
In Serbia, as elsewhere in postsocialist Europe, the rise of “civil society” was expected to support a smooth transformation to Western models of liberal democracy and capitalism. More than twenty years after the Yugoslav wars, these expectations appear largely unmet. Frontiers of Civil Society asks why, exploring the roles of multiple civil society forces in a set of government “reforms” of society and individuals in the early 2010s, and examini…
Frontiers of Civil Society: Government and Hegemony in Serbia
Frontiers of Civil Society: Government and Hegemony in Serbia
In Serbia, as elsewhere in postsocialist Europe, the rise of 'civil society' was expected to support a smooth transformation to Western models of liberal democracy and capitalism. More than twenty years after the Yugoslav wars, these expectations appear largely unmet. Frontiers of Civil Society asks why, exploring the roles of multiple civil society forces in a set of government `reforms' of society and individuals in the early 2010s, and examini…
"Gramsci, Ethnography, and "Class
Between recognition and redistribution: Disability, (human) rights, and struggles over welfare in Serbia
This article analyses the discourse surrounding, implementation of, and struggles over the new disability policy in Serbia to show how its founding principles of human rights became partially co-opted by neoliberal welfare restructuring. As a result, it sought to make disabled people not only equal but also economically 'independent' in the sense of relying on wage labour instead of welfare. Owing to its inadequate assumptions and instruments, th…
Contesting household debt in Croatia: The double movement of financialization and the fetishism of money in Eastern European peripheries
The Anthropology of Financialization in Eastern Europe
Initially understood as a narrowly economic process of financial expansion, the concept of financialization has expanded to describe the increasing power of financial actors, practices, logics, and narratives in various domains of social life and the resulting transformations. Anthropologists study financialization as a polyvalent social process that works in and through social relations and encompasses financial expansion and penetration as well…
New' but 'Squeezed: Middle Class and Mortgaged Homeownership in Croatia
Some recent anthropological accounts of middle classes centred on their indebted home-ownership. They stressed its two contrastive logics fitting a wider binary - exposing 'squeezed' middle classes in the global North to increasing risks, and supporting the ascent of their 'new' counterparts in the South. The genealogy of middle-class housing debt in Croatia presented in this article reveals another, post-socialist trajectory where mundane and op…
Introduction: Boom, crisis and politics of Swiss franc mortgages in Eastern Europe: comparing trajectories of dependent financialization of housing
This Special Feature is the first regional and holistic comparative study of Swiss franc (CHF) mortgages in Eastern Europe from the mid-2000s up to now. We examine this form of lending as a critical mechanism of the dependent financialization of housing in the region and look at its political and class-based repercussions in the four most significant national cases: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Serbia. This introduction reviews and connects the s…
Moral economies of housing in post-boom Croatia: Swiss franc loans crisis and politics of housing financialization
This paper traces the Croatian Swiss franc loans crisis and debtors’ movement in the context of the wider politics of housing finance after the 2000s credit and housing boom. The movement mainly contested Swiss franc loans through litigation and demands for regulation of predatory lending practices. This selective and institutional articulation of the issue reflected the urban middle-class background of the movement’s constituency and its ambival…
Making sense of the financialization of households: State of the Art and Beyond
Building on, and going beyond, the state-of-the-art literature, this article aims to advance the analysis and conceptualization of the financialization of households. It argues that there is a need to better conceptualize the household and that the relations between households and other actors in financialized capitalism require further elaboration. Its contribution rests on providing a high-level review of literature and on proposing a relationa…
Veliki i mali: Uvođenje eura i nacionalna valuta u Hrvatskoj
Ovaj članak razmatra hrvatski javni diskurs o uvođenju eura iz perspektive dvaju polja istraživanja antropologije novca i financija: uloge diskursa u toj sferi društvenog života i slojevite i raznolike prirode valute, uključujući euro kao primjer njezinih suvremenih transformacija. Studija taj diskurs ujedno situira i u političko-ekonomski kontekst nejednakosti valuta. Ključni je nalaz da su taj diskurs obilježili hegemonistički narativi koji su …
Tracking Mortgage Pathways in Zagreb: Everyday Economics of Debt, Housing Wealth, and Debtors’ Agency in a European Semiperiphery
Drawing on a case study of mortgage debt in Zagreb, Croatia, this article argues that the anthropology of household debt should engage more deeply with its economic implications and uses for debtors. It contributes novel insights from an understudied Eastern European setting to the Anglophone-centric debates on housing wealth and the financialization of subjectivity. The original mortgage pathways approach uses repeat interviews to track individu…
Managing problem debt in Europe: Introduction to the theme section
This introduction to the theme section proposes the concept of problem debt, understood as household debt deviating from actors’ and institutionalized norms about its course, and presents a relational and historical realist approach focused on the practices of marking and managing problem debt. We discuss key emic perspectives on problem debt, agencies directly involved in its management (debt apparatuses), and the interaction of varied understan…
Political science (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Financialization (5 works) · Market economy (5 works)