Panethnicity and Social Solidarity in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

This article examines the social cohesion of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s inhabitants through the concept of panethnicity. Panethnicity is exemplified through an array of shared marriage practices and kinship patterns. The marriage customs analyzed are prenuptial parties, elopements, affinal visitations, fictive kinships, and homogamy. A statistical analysis with a loglinear model using data collected in 2014 on marriage customs from a clustered, stratified, random survey of the population is conducted (n = 2,900). Despite the political structures of the Dayton Peace Accords that reify ethnic identities, there remains a shared cultural identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina reflected in the marriage customs and kinship relations of its inhabitants. Panethnicity structures a social cohesion that blends the contrasting Durkheimian concepts of organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity.