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Abstract
This article explores agonistic processes of peace, which are situated within and constitutive of different spaces and places. Three contested cities, Sarajevo, Mostar and Višegrad in Bosnia-Herzegovina, provide us with local sites where peace and peace building in various forms ‘take place’ as people come together in collective action. Through a close reading of three symbolically and materially important bridges in the towns, we reveal meaning-making processes, as agentive subjects struggle around competing claims in the post-conflict everyday world. The collective, situated and fleeting agency that we explore through the Arendtian notion of ‘space of appearance’ invests space with meaning, belonging and identity. Thus, this article grapples with agonistic peace as it manifests itself in materiality and spatial practices. We use the social and material spaces of the city to locate agency and agonism in peace building as they relate to the conflict legacy in Mostar, Višegrad and Sarajevo in order to advance the critical peace research agenda.
Notes
1. Arendt, The Human Condition.
2. Ibid; and Owens, Between War and Politics, 37.
3. Shinko, “Agnostic Peace,” 489.
4. Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Local Turn in Peacebuilding”; Richmond, “Critical Agency”; and Kappler, Local Agency and Peacebuilding.
5. Mac Ginty and Richmond, “The Local Turn in Peacebuilding.”
6. Kappler, “The Dynamic Local,” 875–876.
7. See Bieber, “Local Institutional Engineering”; Pickering “Generating Social Capital”; and Moore, Peacebuilding in Practice.
8. Campbell, National Deconstruction; Toal and Dalman, Bosnia Remade; and Jeffrey, The Improvised State.
9. Coleman and Collins, “Being…Where?”; and Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System.”
10. Brooke Ackerly et al., Feminist Methodologies; and Thapar-Björkert and Henry, “Reassessing the Research Relationship.”
11. See Markowitz, Sarajevo; and Eastmond and Mannergren Selimovic, “Silence as Possibility.”
12. Markowitz, Sarajevo.
13. Lee and Ingold, “Fieldwork on Foot.”
14. Examples of key agents are civil society representatives engaged in commemoration, international officials and tourist guides.
15. Malkki, Purity and Exile, 49; and Nordstrom and Robben, Fieldwork under Fire, 139.
16. Arendt, The Human Condition.
17. Ibid., 199.
18. Ibid., 204.
19. Arendt cited in Allen, “Solidarity After Identity Politics: Hannah Arendt and the Power of Feminist Theory,” 113.
20. Owens, Between War and Politics, 37.
21. Shinko, “Agnostic Peace,” 489.
22. Arendt, The Human Condition, 199.
23. Butler, “Bodies in Alliance.”
24. Arendt, The Human Condition, 199.
25. Butler, “Bodies in Alliance.”
26. Björkdahl and Mannergren Selimovic, “Gendering Agency,” 170–171.
27. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 93. See also Mitchell and Kelly, ‘Walking’ with de Certeau, on the confrontations of de Certeau’s ‘tactics and strategies’ in the physical spaces of Belfast.
28. Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina.
29. ICTY, “Milan Lukić and Sredoje Lukić.” Close to the river, beyond the town’s erstwhile Christian quarter, is Vilina Vlas – the holiday complex in which Serbian paramilitary men locked and systematically raped Muslim women. Today the resort complex functions as if nothing had ever happened. The story of Vilina Vlas and its concomitant silences is told in a film by Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic.
30. Vulliamy, “Bosnia.”
31. Boose, “Crossing the River Drina”; and Fritzsche, “The Case of Modern Memory.”
32. Dahlman and Toal, “Broken Bosnia.”
33. The most prominent of these trials were held against two Bosnian Serb commanders, Milan Lukić and Sredoje Lukić, who in 2009 were found guilty of persecution, extermination and other inhumane acts in the Višegrad region. ICTY, “Milan Lukić and Sredoje Lukić.”
34. TeVe Novine, “Višegrad - dvadesetogodišnjica zločina.” Accessed June 29, 2015, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9jliW-j4I. The film shows the commemoration on the 20th anniversary of the massacres. See also Nikolic, “Tre städer.”
35. See, for example, the website Visegrade Genocide Memories. Accessed June 29, 2015, genocideinvisegrad.wordpress.com.
36. Nikolic, 135.
37. Interview, local government representative, Višegrad, September 23, 2014; and interview, women’s organisation Most, Višegrad, September 23, 2014.
38. Simic and Daly, “‘One Pair of Shoes’.”
39. Women in Black, “Zona slobodna od mržnje.” Accessed 25 Aug 2013, www.zeneucrnom.org/index.php?option; and Fridman, “Alternative Voices.”
40. UNESCO, “Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge.”
41. Interview, women’s organisation Most, Višegrad, September 23, 2014.
42. Nikolic, ”Tre städer.”
43. Built in 1566, destroyed on 9 December 1993 and rebuilt in 2004, inaugurated 23 July 2004, in 2005 it was adopted as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites as a material symbol of multiculturalism and reconciliation. ‘Most’ means bridge and it is an identity carrier for Mostarians. Nicolic, “Tre städer.”
44. Yarwood, Rebuilding Mostar; and Björkdahl, “The EU Administration.”
45. Krishnamurthy, “Memory and Form.”
46. UNESCO, “Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar.”
47. Ashdown, “Remarks by High Representative”; and Traynor, “Mostar reclaims Ottoman Heritage.”
48. Makas, ”Interpreting Multivalent Sites.”
49. Ibid.
50. Interview, local NGO representative, Mostar, September 4, 2013.
51. Interview, bridge diver, Mostar, September 25, 2014.
52. Interview, teacher, Mostar, September 25, 2014.
53. Interview, local NGO representative, Mostar, September 25, 2014.
54. Nicolic, “Tre städer.”
55. ICTY, “Jadranko Prlic.”
56. Grodach, “Reconstituting Identity.”
57. Interview, Historian Nicolas Moll , Sarajevo, September 2, 2013.
58. Interview, local guide, Sarajevo, September 1, 2013.
59. Malcolm, A Short History of Bosnia.
60. Ibid.
61. Schork, “Two Lovers lie Dead…”
62. Zaritsky, “Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo.”
63. Interview, local guide, Sarajevo, September 1, 2013.
64. Radio Sarajevo, “Protesti za JMBG.” Accessed June 29, 2015, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX1RpskM18M. The film shows street protests. See also Dedovic, “Bosnia’s Baby Revolution”; and Ruvik and Zuvela, “Bosnia rocked by Spreading Anti-government Unrest.”
65. Zabranjeno pušenje, “Boško i Admira.” Accessed June 29, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMMfW3IqiFE.
66. Shinko, “Agnostic Peace,” 489.