barbara gornik

The article analyses the impact of schools being closed during the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects this has had on migrant learners in Slovenian schools regarding their integration process and the reproduction of social inequalities. The article argues that the closure of schools and distance learning in response has en- couraged the reproduction of social inequalities between migrant and non-migrant learners. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected within the MiCREATE project among teachers and migrant learners. The findings suggest that the closure of schools places learners with a migrant background at additional risk. The main obstacles arise from the language constraints and technical barriers (for example, underdeveloped digital literacy and inadequate technical equipment) migrant learn- ers face. In the conclusion, we present possible measures to address the specific needs of migrant learners, for example, the principles of intercultural education.

During the process of gaining national independence the Slovenian government unlawfully erased 25,671 individuals, mainly citizens of other republics of the former Yugoslavia from the Slovenian Register of Permanent Residents. In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Kurić and others vs. Republic of Slovenia held that there had been a violation of the 8th, 13th and 14th Articles of the European Convention on Human rights. Following this judgement the Slovenian government adopted a compensation scheme for the Erased introducing the criteria determining conditions for their redress. The article reflects on the political and legal construction of victimhood and reveals the notions of political loyalty, legal conformity and territorial attachment as one of the most decisive elements of victimhood. It shows that the subjectivity of victims in the case of the Erased is not defined within the human rights discourse but is grounded in nationalist terms.

In 1992, after the dissolution of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Slovenian government unlawfully erased 25,671 individuals—ethnically mainly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, and Roma—from the Register of Permanent Residents of Slovenia. The aim of this article is to analyze the logic of the governmental rationalities that served as a basis for the politics of the erasure. The article begins by refuting claims that the erasure was a tactic for achieving ethnocultural homogeneity and continues by explaining the mindset involved in this particular practice of government, resting upon Foucault’s notions ofraison d’état, governmentality, and sovereign power. Highlighting the prominence of the individual’s political opinion and loyalty to the newly established state, the article discusses the principles of nationalism, which reinforce the very common-sense exclusionary politics related to political loyalty implied in citizenship and ethnic identity. Final...