The Mobilization for Spatial Justice in Divided Societies: Urban Commons, Trust Reconstruction, and Socialist Memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article contributes to the urban studies literature and the study of social movements in divided societies by disclosing the distinctive features and mobilizing potential that the notion of urban commons retains in a war-torn society with a socialist legacy. Specifically, it investigates how urban space and urban commons are reclaimed in a post-conflict and post-socialist country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. By using Sarajevo as a case study, the article explores several grassroots initiatives undertaken by local urban activists to reappropriate cultural buildings and public space in the city. The study discloses that in a post-conflict and post-socialist society urban commons can bear a unifying potential as acts of commoning favor trust reconstruction processes and strengthen community ties. While the erosion of social ties and the legacy of the war might not encourage mobilization for the commons, the reference to socialist-era practices and language can represent a vantage point to advocate in favor of collective governance. Throughout their actions, urban activists instrumentally referred to the historical experience of socialism to develop a discourse that resonates with the domestic cultural environment. The article points also to a generational difference amongst activists in their references to Yugoslav state socialism. While long-time activists strove to critically reappraise it, the younger ones born in the immediate post-war period appear to hold a more superficial and ambivalent historical knowledge of the socialist heritage, to which they had only partial access and no lived experience.

From the streets to the town halls: Municipalist platforms in the post-Yugoslav space

“…Those projects encountered the fierce opposition of movements that sparked the mobilisation of political opponents, often forming RtC groups (Dolenec et al, 2017). The privatisation of public space and services triggered mobilisation across the Western Balkans (Milan, 2021) to the extent that opposition to neoliberal urban development has been defined as a ‘fundamental post-socialist struggle’ (Bilić and Stubbs, 2015: 124). In fact, the fall of socialist regimes created a series of opportunities for speculation in the field of urbanisation, whereby property speculators worked together with local politicians for the sake of private profit (Bilić and Stubbs, 2015).…”

“…This meant that social property belonged to the whole society. The debate on the concepts (and flaws) of social property and the commons has revived across the region’s activist networks since the 2010s, with publications enriching the discussion delving into both the socialist Yugoslav idea of social property, so far mostly disregarded, and the practical, concrete experiences of commoning through collaborating and sharing in the area (Milan, 2021; Tomašević et al, 2018).…”

“…Since the 2010s, in the post-Yugoslav movement sphere there has been an attempt to revive and retrieve the historical experience of socialism (Kurtović and Sargsyan, 2019). In spite of the contested heritage of the socialist period, in the last decade the debate around ‘the unrealized potentials of Yugoslav socialism’ (Kurtović, 2019: 20) has thrived amongst intellectual circles in the area (Milan, 2021), influencing and informing the vision of the activists who created the platforms. According to the respondents, the originators of the platforms strove to articulate a municipalist discourse that had ‘a regional flavour’ by delving into the mechanisms and practices of self-government – such as the Workers’ Councils that were in place in the socialist federation of Yugoslavia, to which both Croatia and Serbia belonged until its breakup in 1991–1992.…”

“…Although only partially realised, self-governing socialism constitutes an important point of reference as it envisioned an emancipatory model based on self-management experiments and self-governance practices (Milan, 2021). For instance, the socialist regime foresaw self-managing interest groups ( Samoupravne Interesne Zajednice ), planning bodies that gathered together producers and users of public service companies to grant direct citizen participation in the urban economy (Kasoff, 1976).…”