Victims underdogs and rebels - Discursive practices of resistance in Serbian protest

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article analyses the discursive pract ices of resistance deployed in two recent was es of dissent in Serbia: the 1996-97 demonstrations against the Milosevic regime, and the 1999 anti-NATO protest. I explore three identity motifs running through both protests ('v ictims', 'underdogs', and 'rebels'), and explain how they were differential ly articulated in to a discursive practice of defiance. In con temporary Se rbia, they resonate with everyday mechanisms of coping and belonging, groun ded in nationalist representations of what it means to be a Serb. By analys ing the contradictory deploy ment and performance of these motifs in two ve ry different outbursts of dissent, this article offers art understanding of the tactical polyvalence of discourses of resistance.