Abstract
AbstractThis article is based on an ethnographic study carried out during the Nezuk-Potočari Peace March in the framework of Srebrenica genocide commemoration. A more than 100-kilometer procession, attracting each year around 5,000 participants, represents the reverse route of the so-called Death March, the local population’s way of escape from the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Following theoretical insights from both memory studies and cultural geography, this article’s aim is to analyze mnemonic practices commemorating the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, it explores the social processes through which such memory is produced, performed, and maintained. While applying participant observant methodology, I have engaged in conversation with residents and main actors taking part in the Peace March. Finally, the notion of collective memory is approached from the perspective of spatial mobility engagement of people visiting commemorative events and monuments dedicated to the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Highlights
On the first Sunday of July 2018, once we have managed to put all our camping equipment and a dog in the car, my colleagues and I leave Zagreb and head off for Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina
My main hypothesis is that the Peace March, as a form of spatial mobility engagement of people visiting battlefield and massacre sites, monuments, and commemorative events, represents an act of unconscious reenactment
The rationale for a bottom-up approach to collective memory came from an aspiration to bridge the existing normative gap: even though the memory studies theory underlined attempts to construct a common cultural identity, i.e. “presuppose a [ ... ] desire for cultural homogeneity, consistency, and predictability” (Kansteiner 2006, 23), the practice reveals a different state of affairs: contested memories, embracing different interpretations of the past that confront one another (Misztal 2003), produce divergent vectors of memory even within the same social group
Summary
On the first Sunday of July 2018, once we have managed to put all our camping equipment and a dog in the car, my colleagues and I leave Zagreb and head off for Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our host, who greets us after the long, nerve-wracking game won by Croatia, comments that he doesn’t know how he survived it. This familiar phrase, uttered by a sports fan, suddenly gives me chills, since I subconsciously associate it with the Nezuk to Potočari, Peace March.. Following theoretical insights from both memory studies and cultural geography, this article’s aim is to analyze mnemonic practices commemorating the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. My main hypothesis is that the Peace March, as a form of spatial mobility engagement of people visiting battlefield and massacre sites, monuments, and commemorative events, represents an act of unconscious reenactment. I provide some context regarding the aftermath of the Srebrenica genocide and the creation of a memorial initiative Peace March. The analysis of the Peace March as an act of reenactment is presented and followed by concluding remarks
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