Abstract
AbstractThis article explores collective identity frames and discursive strategies employed by social movement actors mobilizing in ethnically divided societies, a context where ethnicity constitutes the primary collective category of identification. By using Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study, it analyzes movement framing in three waves of social protests that occurred in the country in the last decade. Specifically, it investigates the diverse ways in which movement leaders tackled ethnicity in their discourses. The article shows that movement leaders’ narratives rested, respectively, on the primacy of human and citizenship rights, a common feeling of deprivation, and victimhood. Their approach toward ethnicity, however, differed in each wave. Ethnicity was openly rejected in 2013, avoided and not openly contested in 2014, and accepted and approached as an opportunity to bring further support to the movement in 2018. The article highlights that ethnicity can be tackled differently by social movement actors mobilizing on nonethnic grounds in divided societies, and that it might constitute a vantage point for social mobilization rather than a drawback, contributing to raising transversal solidarity.
Highlights
In January 2019, the New York Times published an article titled “In Bosnia, a Father’s Grief Swells into an Antigovernment Movement” (Surk 2019)
Drawing on the existing literature and empirical data, this study offers an in-depth analysis of collective identity frames and discursive strategies used by social movement actors mobilizing on nonethnic ground in an ethnically divided context such as Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) over the last decade
This article has explored different collective identity frames and discursive strategies used by social movement actors mobilizing on nonethnic grounds in divided societies
Summary
In January 2019, the New York Times published an article titled “In Bosnia, a Father’s Grief Swells into an Antigovernment Movement” (Surk 2019). This article attempts to fill this gap in the literature by addressing the following questions: Which discursive strategies and collective identity frames do social movement actors employ when mobilizing on nonethnic ground in ethnically divided settings?
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