ZBOR is a word with many layers of meaning for the people of the former Yugoslav countries. Most simply, it means gathering or assembly, and as such it is known in villages throughout the region. However, the Climate Justice and Just Transition Initiative ZBOR (Združeni Balkanski Otpor i Rad) specifically evokes the meaning(s) from the days of Yugoslavia’s anti-fascist revolutionary liberation movement and its self-organizing mechanisms, as well as from the socialist years, when ZBOR was the fundamental institution of direct democracy and self-management. ZBOR was a vital everyday democratic practice in every factory, organization, apartment block, school, workplace. ZBOR is a place and time where anything can happen. Today, the word is often reduced to the meaning of chorus, but the ZBOR initiative embraces this contemporary usage as well – as one of its main goals is to gather the voices of the many for our common world and time.
In their “Kin City” talk, the participants of the ZBOR initiative spoke about the founding of their initiative at the BG conference “Allied Grounds” (2023) and the first major gathering they organized in September of 2024, bringing together land defenders and urban activists from the region and beyond, in a designated mining area in Eastern Serbia to think and work together, to self-organize and self-educate for future actions.
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The sixth panel of the conference at the “Kin City” festival took place on October 17, 2024 at the ZK/U – Center for Arts and Urbanistics. You can listen to the recording by clicking on the play button above.