Coffee after cleansing?

Stefansson, Anders H.

doi:10.3167/fcl.2010.570105

Cited by 26 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…When it comes to the silencing of war in interethnic encounters, the paper contradicts previous research on this phenomenon, which argues that not talking about war with members of the respective out-groups contributes to an integration of the Bosnian society (Stefansson 2010). Prima facie, it might seem reasonable to assume that the silencing of the war-torn past in interethnic communication is conducive to interethnic integration, since it is only by avoiding the most fiercely disputed issues that members of the different ethnic communities are able to interact 'peacefully' in everyday life and thereby create 'new' realities (Berger and Luckmann 1966), realities within which ethnic boundaries become less important.…”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 85%

Don’t Talk About the Elephant: Silence and Ethnic Boundaries in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mijić

2018

Hum Stud

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In December 1995, the guns fell silent on Bosnia-Herzegovina and so did much dialogue. Silence is omnipresent in this postwar society: People conceal their suffering; they remain silent about their potential responsibility and guilt andin interethnic encounters-the violent past is often wholly screened out. Drawing on a literature analysis as well as own interviews and ethnographic observations conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina since 2007, the article focuses on the interplay between silence and the constitution of ethnic boundaries. In accordance with the literature, it argues that silencing in-group atrocities reinforces the boundaries between former enemies by strengthening ethnically biased collective memories. However, existing research also suggest that not speaking about war in interethnic encounters most likely contributes to the integration of Bosnian society because it enables members of different ethnic communities to interact 'peacefully' in everyday life, thereby creating 'new' realities within which ethnic boundaries become less important. This conclusion assumes that silencing necessarily leads to forgetting. The following paper challenges this perception and argues that silence about war and the avoidance of conflict in interethnic communication can, in fact, also promote a further consolidation of ethnic boundaries. When conversations about past realities only take place between like-minded people, the likely result is that their pre-existing shared perspective on this reality will become solidified. In other words, silencing war in interethnic encounters impedes any potential revision or restructuring of interethnic relations and therefore stabilises the boundaries between ethnic groups.

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Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 85%

Don’t Talk About the Elephant: Silence and Ethnic Boundaries in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mijić

2018

Hum Stud

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“…As Lamont (1992) has shown, moral discourses are often involved in creating or stabilising symbolic boundaries, i.e., they are not only relevant when it comes to (post-)war situations. The strategies the paper subsumes under the 'associative strategies' label are typically either not considered by literature or only considered in terms of investigating how to end the cycle of competitive victimhood (Noor et al 2012, 363-64;Clark 2014;Stefansson 2010).…”

Section: Discussion: Strategies In Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity, ethnic boundaries, and collective victimhood: analysing strategies of self-victimisation in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mijić

2020

Identities

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Characteristics from the social construction of 'self' and of 'others' in Bosnia-Herzegovina show that the creation of a positive self-image in this postwar society is strongly connected with collective self-victimisation of one's own ingroup. An objective hermeneutical analysis of narrative interviews conducted with Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Serbs reveals five self-victimisation strategies: Two dissociative strategies, which conspicuously reproduce the dichotomy of victim and perpetrator along ethnic lines and candidly reinforce the ethnic boundariesmoral alchemy and double relativisationand three strategies, which seem to transcend the boundaries between ethnic in-group and out-groupthe associative strategies of subjectification of war, the externalisation of responsibility, and silence. A subsequent contextualisation of the identified strategies indicates, however, that, ultimately, associative strategies are equally conducive to the further manifestation of ethnic boundaries.

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“…This has caused the development of strategic repression and strategic chosen amnesia (Buckley-Zistel, 2006) in order to enable individuals and nations to live on together. Anthropologist Anders H. Stefansson (2010) describes how peaceful coexistence in post-conflict Bosnia has been made possible. The most important aspect that he raises is the way people deal with the past in everyday life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How a Collective Trauma Influences Ethno-Religious Relations of Adolescents in Present-Day Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Šehagić¹

2016

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This article combines a historical perspective on intergenerational transmission of collective trauma with a psychoanthropological approach in regards to the construction of multiple identifications by Bosniak adolescents growing up in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the Balkan war that took place in the early 1990s. This research is based on the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted during my three-month stay in Sarajevo, a city that has been the center of battles between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. The aim of this research is to understand the ways in which memories of the war linger on in contemporary interethnic and interreligious relations. I applied Dialogical Self Theory to analyze dilemmas and ambiguities emerging from the multiple identifications of Muslim adolescents, to whom coexistence with Bosnian Serbs has come to be part of everyday life. During oral histories, my informants expressed a desire to maintain a sense of normality, consisting of a stable political and economic present and future. I argue that nationalist ideologies on ethno-religious differences which were propagated during the war stand in the way of living up to this desire. On a micro level, people try to manage their desire for normality by promoting a certain degree of social cohesion and including the ethno-religious other to a shared national identity of 'being Bosnian'.

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Coffee after cleansing?

Cited by 26 publications

References 20 publications

Don’t Talk About the Elephant: Silence and Ethnic Boundaries in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

Don’t Talk About the Elephant: Silence and Ethnic Boundaries in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

Identity, ethnic boundaries, and collective victimhood: analysing strategies of self-victimisation in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina

How a Collective Trauma Influences Ethno-Religious Relations of Adolescents in Present-Day Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

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