Researches conducted so far within the project Spinning out of control: rhetoric and violent conflict. Representations of 'self'-'other' in the Yugoslav successor states focused on exploring the relations towards the Other in a state of conflict. Moreover: most of the author's and coauthors' contributions were oriented towards discourse analysis in the context of violence. Except for the peaceful dismemberment of Montenegro and Serbia, proclamation of independance of other Yugoslav states did not go without violence, to a greater or lesser extent. The Other in these situations was predominantly the ethnic Other, and usualy treated as enemy. For that reason, the greater part of our past work was oriented towards analysing media reports of the most stiking war events. Also, some of the contributions intentionally targeted media reportings of tense situations and those bearing the unpredictable outcomes, such as referenda or meetings discusing war and peace matters; or, we focused our inquiries on radical standpoints expressed by certain media or political parties-all that in order to explore the essencial forms of constructing and manifesting the Otherness on a rhetoric level. From a broader perspective, the analysed period, marked by the wars of ex-Yugoslavia in the last decade of 20th century, could be comprehended as the preiod of a state of emergency, where the old order had been brutaly and radicaly destroyed and the new one was installed. In such a process, as it was shown, the relation towads the Other was also usualy extreme and ethnicly motivated. Now, after the constitution of seven new states where once former Yugoslavia was, new questions emerge. We are interested, as we were before, in the identity constructions, especially in the relations toward the Other, and Otherness in general, now in the period of transition and normalization of mutual relationships that these societies are undergoing. Along with the theories of ethnicity and identity construction, the key perspective remains discursive analysis. Our main question is What is happening with the fenomenon of Otherness in public discourse, in the peaceful times, or in the post conflict state? Do the ways of representing Others from the conflict times disappear, or do they "freeze", that is to say, remain the same, or get manifested on some other levels and by different rhetorical tools? In short, what is happening with the Others in discourses that do not "spin out of control"? Are the Others stable, mutable or flexible category and where are the imagological boundaries of Otherness? Who are the Others now? Are there any Others among us in ethnical sense? What is the nature of relation towards the common Yugoslav past, in other words, has the common past also become the Otherness for the people of former Yugoslavia? Are the "refugees", "cast-outs", "displaced persons", "returnees"... only the new names for the old display of Otherness?
