The fall of the United Nations 'safe area' of Srebrenica in July 1995 to Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces stands out as the international community's most egregious failure to intervene during the ...Bosnian war. It led to genocide, forced displacement and a legacy of loss. But wartime inaction has since spurred numerous postwar attempts to address the atrocities' effects on Bosnian society and its diaspora. Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide reveals how interactions between local, national and international interventions - from refugee return and resettlement to commemorations, war crimes trials, immigration proceedings and election reform - have led to subtle, positive effects of social repair, despite persistent attempts at denial. Using an interdisciplinary approach, diverse research methods, and more than a decade of fieldwork in five countries, Lara J. Nettelfield and Sarah E. Wagner trace the genocide's reverberations in Bosnia and abroad. The findings of this study have implications for research on post-conflict societies around the world.
The book is about the peace implementation process in Bosnia-Herzegovina viewed, or interpreted reasonably, as a continuation of war by other means. Twenty years after the beginning of the Dayton ...peace accords, we need to summarize the results: the author shares the general agreement in public opinion, according to which the process is a failure. Pehar presents a broad, yet sufficiently detailed, view of the entire peace agreement implementation that preserves ‘the state of war,’ and thus encourages the war-prone attitudes in the parties to the agreement. He examines the political and narratological underpinnings to the process of the imposed international (predominantly USA) interpretation of the Dayton constitution and peace treaty as a whole. The key issue is the – perhaps only semi-consciously applied – divide ut imperes strategy. After nearly twenty years, the peace in document was not translated into a peace on the ground because, with regard to the key political and constitutional issues and attitudes, Bosnia remains a deeply divided society. The book concludes that the international supervision served a counter-purpose: instead of correcting the aberration and guarding the meaning that was originally accepted in the Dayton peace treaty, the supervision approved the aberration and imposed it as a new norm under the clout of ‘the power of ultimate interpretation.’
By exploring the development of ethnic diversity and national tensions in Bulgaria and Bosnia, while also drawing parallels with Macedonia, this volume uses the three most diversely populated areas ...in the Balkans to tackle complex issues. What institutions of state building are capable of managing diverse ethno-religious traditions and conflicting national identities? How do people on the ground respond to state-sponsored political projects at the local community level? In what ways do studies of cultural representations of ethno-national and religious conflicts call attention to inequality and human rights violations? How have studies of human rights problems in the Balkans contributed to changes in international law? More generally, what is the role of the humanities and social sciences in developing a discourse on the subject of conflict resolution and human rights? The volume engages the question of ethno-national conflicts and identities from three perspectives: historical interpretations of national conflict and ethno-religious tensions in the context of empire- and state-building; cultural debates as reflected in the use of language and dance, film, and media production and circulation as tools for nation-and community-building; and thirdly, current political controversies over national resurgence and human rights both in the post-Yugoslav war context and in connection to European Union integration.
This social, cultural, and political history of Slavic Muslim women of the Yugoslav region in the first decades of the post-Ottoman era is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues ...confronting these women. It is based on a study of voluntary associations (philanthropic, cultural, Islamic-traditionalist, and feminist) of the period. It is broadly held that Muslim women were silent and relegated to a purely private space until 1945, when the communist state “unveiled” and “liberated” them from the top down. After systematic archival research in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Austria, Fabio Giomi challenges this view by showing: How different sectors of the Yugoslav elite through association publications, imagined the role of Muslim women in post-Ottoman times, and how Muslim women took part in the construction or the contestation of these narratives. How associations employed different means in order to forge a generation of “New Muslim Women” able to cope with the post-Ottoman political and social circumstances. And how Muslim women used the tools provided by the associations in order to pursue their own projects, aims and agendas. The insights are relevant for today’s challenges facing Muslim women in Europe. The text is illustrated with exceptional photographs.
As a small, landlocked country, medieval Bosnia managed to
preserve its individuality, characterized by religious plurality and by the
persistence of its own ancient customs. But its central position ...in the region,
situated between east and west, and between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity,
meant it was heavily influenced, both politically and culturally by the
Venetian Republic, the Hungarian Kingdom, and the Byzantine Empire. Due to language
issues and scarcity of sources, this region has largely been overlooked by
western historiography. This volume features contributions from an exciting new
generation of medievalists, who are working to rectify this gap in the
narrative.<o:p>
General George Joulwan played a role in many pivotal world
events during his long and exceptional career. Present at both the
rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, he served multiple tours in
Germany ...during the Cold War and two tours in Vietnam. By chance, he
was recruited as Nixon's White House deputy chief of staff and
witnessed the last acts of the Watergate drama first-hand. He went
on to lead US Southern Command -- fighting insurgencies and the
drug war in Latin America -- and was Supreme Allied Commander of
NATO forces in Europe (SACEUR) during the Rwandan genocide and the
Bosnian peacekeeping missions of the 1990s.
Joulwan chronicles his career in the upper echelons of the armed
forces. He shares his experiences working with major military and
political figures, including generals William E. DePuy, Alexander
Haig, John Vessey, and Colin Powell, US ambassador Richard
Holbrooke, and presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill
Clinton. Beyond the battlefield, Joulwan became an advocate for
military and civilian relations during the Vietnam War,
deescalating several high-intensity situations while studying at
Loyola University as part of the US Army's Option C program.
Watchman at the Gates merges memory and lessons in
leadership as Joulwan pays tribute to his teachers and colleagues
and explains the significance of their influence on his personal
approach to command. As a leader of combat troops in Vietnam, he
appealed to his subordinates on an individual basis, taking time to
build relationships that proved vital to the effectiveness of his
commands. He also reveals how similar relationships of mutual
understanding were crucial in his peaceful and productive dealings
with both allies and enemies.
At its heart, this inspiring memoir is a soldier's story --
written by a warrior who saw defending his country and the
democratic values it stands for as his highest calling. Featuring a
foreword by Tom Brokaw, Watchman at the Gates offers
incredible insights into world events as well as valuable lessons
for a new generation of leaders.
A fresh examination of the political economy of the peacebuilding process in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the aftermath of the country's 1992-95 war. Little progress has been made in transforming the ...country's war-shattered economy into a functioning market economy, this new study explains the principal dynamics that have led to this, and places Bosnia's economic transition process within the context of the country's broader post-conflict peacebuilding process. The central argument this book persuasively advances is that much of Bosnia's ongoing economic crisis, and its current reform stalemate, can be explained by exploring the interactions of an inappropriate international model of economic reform with the country's particular post-conflict and post-socialist political economy. This book is essential for readers who wish to build an understanding of the region and assess its future prospects and hopes.
Timothy Donais is Associate Professor of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. He completed his PhD at York University in August 2003. His current research focuses on post-conflict peacebuilding. Between 1996 and 2000, he served in various capacities with the Bosnia Mission of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), most recently as a Sarajevo-based public information officer.
1. Introduction and Overview 2. The Washington Consensus Meets the Political Economy of Conflict Chapter 3. State-Making the Dayton Way 4. Resistance and Entrenchment - Ethnic Division, Domestic Power Structures, and Economic Reform 5. Business as Usual - International Prescriptions for Bosnia's Economic Transition 6. The Politics of Privatization 7. The Political Economy of Return 8. The Social Dimensions of Peacebuilding and Transition 9. Conclusion
In this daring experiment in ethnographic place-writing, cultural geographer James Riding aims to get at the heart of post-conflict Bosnia showing the past alongside the present it created via a ...series of journeys and through the retelling of memories. The juxtaposition of the siege of Sarajevo and supersonic metal, the refugee journey and the aid worker traveling in the other direction, the desperation and fury to change the present yet being stuck with many of the ethnonationalist politicians and politics of the past—it is a journey to Bosnia as it is understood today in popular discourse, a war-torn place defined by ethnic conflict, yet also a journey to deconstruct and reveal more than ancient ethnic hatreds portrayed on television screens across the globe from 1992 to 1995. Heavy with the weight of history, on the one hand, and an inspirational place with radical emancipatory politics on the other, it is only through innovative storytelling that one can attempt to give a sense of what Bosnia itself is like in words for those who have never been, and—most importantly—for those who are from there.
While the specifics of individual wars vary, they share a common epilogue: the task of finding and identifying the "disappeared." The Bosnian war of the early 1990s, which destroyed the sovereign ...state of Yugoslavia, is no exception. InWorking in the Killing Fields, Howard Ball focuses on recent developments in the technology of forensic science and on the work of forensic professionals in Bosnia following that conflict. Ball balances the examination of complex features of new forensic technology with insights into the lives of the men and women from around the globe who are tasked with finding and excavating bodies and conducting pathological examinations. Having found the disappeared, however, these same pathologists must then also explain the cause of death to international-court criminal prosecutors and surviving families of the victims. Ball considers the physical dangers these professionals regularly confront while performing their site excavations, as well as the emotional pain, including post-traumatic stress disorder, they contend with while in Bosnia and after they leave the killing fields.
Working in the Killing Fieldsintegrates discussion of cutting-edge forensic technology into a wider view of what these searches mean, the damage they do to people, and the healing and good they bring to those in search of answers. Even though the Balkan wars took place two decades ago, the fields where so many men, women, and children died still have gruesome and disturbing stories to tell. Ball puts the spotlight on the forensic professionals tasked with telling that story and on what their work means to them as individuals and to the wider world's understanding of genocide and war.
Shortly after the book's protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More ...than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people's sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless "Meantime." Ethnographically investigating yearnings for "normal lives" in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears.
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