Indigenous communities of the western and central Balkan Peninsula and the 21st century: methodological problem

Abstract

This paper discusses current perceptions and methodologies of research into the identity of pre-Roman Iron Age indigenous communities from the western and central Balkan peninsula, still popularly known as „Illyrians“. The debate about the identity of these communities in the 1990s and 2000s was usually limited to restating the current views and methodological approaches. More serious discussion about the existing theoretical approaches was avoided in both, local and international, scholarship. The introduction of contemporary scholarly views, rooted in post-modern and post-structuralist discourse, to the identity-debate is very scarce and inadequate, resulting in a slowly widening divide between local archaeological research and theoretical interpretation in international scholarship.