Performing Belonging, Celebrating Invisibility?: The role of festivities among migrants of Serbian origin in Denmark and in Serbia

Serbian migrants living transnational lives consciously or unconsciously move between visibility and invisibility in their performance of migrant success stories. Cases in point are public festivals, performed to make visible migrants’ successful inclusion in Danish society, i.e. celebrating invisibility. Meanwhile, other celebrations are consciously relegated to the invisible confines of the Serbian homeland. This article analyses celebrations in Denmark and in Serbia and shows how visible displays of ethnicity and difference tend to turn into easily palatable heritage versions of Serbian culture when performed in a Danish context. In turn, the visibility acquired through celebrations of migrants’ belonging in their homeland is inclined to render invisible those who did not take part in the migration experience.