Velika Kladuša, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina near the border with Croatia, is facing the entry of a large number of migrants/refugees. This town is now the scene of a multifaceted tension between the spontaneous hospitality of the local population and increasingly restrictive European and local policies, which do not only criminalize migrants/refugees, but also all forms of solidarity with them. The central theme of the paper is the analysis of the dynamics that emerge in the intersection of hospitality between the public and the private. As the analysis of field material from Velika Kladuša shows, this attitude is characterized by the invasion of state policies into the domain of hospitality, which transforms local hospitality practices towards migrants/refugees. The field material shows a shift from open to criminalized hospitality towards migrants/refugees. Some residents of Velika Kladuša respond by completely subordinating to the criminalization, some by negotiating with it, and others by openly resisting it. As repression practices of the European migration policy are implemented, various forms of resistance to these policies emerge, such as the spontaneous hospitality practices of the local population, the activism of increasingly criminalized international volunteering, and the persistence and determination of migrants/refugees to cross the border to make their way to Europe.
