Abstract
The chapter argues that drawing borders and boundaries have been for long understood by the international community as an efficient—if not mandatory—way to establish order and assure peace in international politics. More specifically, the chapter presents the way in which borders and boundaries have been thought as a solution to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the conflicts in Yugoslavia in general, but also in Northern Ireland, Croatia, Serbia and Cyprus—and how boundaries, sometimes played out through language, have been thought as a security device in the post-conflict state. Finally, this introduction argues for the importance of understanding everyday boundaries to understand a post-war society. It claims that the everyday provides for an approach that neither contains the straightjackets of top-down approaches nor falls into the trap of essentializing and romanticizing ‘ordinary people’ and ‘the local’. It also claims for a broader understanding of security: one that is embedded in everyday practices. It then guides the reader through the following chapters and highlights the main concepts that will be used in the book.
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Notes
- 1.
This episode from Top Lista Nadrealista can be found on YouTube under the name: Podjela Sarajeva (Sarajaveski Zid). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt9cMJAAwPA&list=RDnt9cMJAAwPA#t=3.
- 2.
By 1995, after almost four years of war, it is estimated that 1.1 million were internally displaced persons and 1,259,000 had fled the country and became refugees in nearby European states or even on other continents.
- 3.
‘Ethnic cleansing’ is a term that was forged in the Bosnian war (Bringa 2002; Toal and Dahlman 2011). It has been defined by the UN as ‘a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas’ (Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780). A UN Report from the United Nations Commission of Experts, in 1994, states that ‘ethnic cleansing has involved means such as the mass killing of civilians, sexual assaults, the bombardments of cities, the destruction of mosques and churches, the confiscation of propriety and similar measures to eliminate or dramatically reduce’ the presence of other groups in a certain territory. According to the report, ‘ethnic cleansing by the Serbs has been systematic and apparently well-planned’. While acknowledging that Croat forces, too, have engaged in ethnic cleansing practices, the UN Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts states that Muslims have not engage on such practices: ‘Croatian forces in the Republic of Croatia and BiH have engaged in «ethnic cleansing» practices against Serbs and Muslims. Croats, for example, have conducted «ethnic cleansing» campaigns against Serbs in eastern and western Slavonia and in parts of the Krajina region, as well as against Muslims in the Mostar area. The UN concluded that, while Bosnian Muslim forces have engaged in practices that constitute «grave breaches» of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law, they have not engaged in «ethnic cleansing» operations’. Available at: www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/anx/IV.htm ‘Ethnic cleansing’, however, is not a juridical category, and the crimes committed under this label have been judged either as ‘Crimes against Humanity’ or ‘Genocide’ by the International Criminal Court for the Ex-Yugoslavia.
- 4.
‘Bosniaks’ and ‘Bosnian’ are terms that refer to two distinct categories. While the former refers to the group which identifies itself (and/or are identified by others) as ‘Muslims’, here comprise people who are not religious, the latter refers to all people who have the citizenship of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 5.
Those three are the major ethnonational groups that compose Bosnia and Herzegovina. Differently from the other federations that integrated Yugoslavia, BiH was formally constituted not by one, but by three so-called constituent people (Bosniaks, Serbians and Croatians), since none of the three was truly majoritarian.
- 6.
The General Framework Agreement is the name of the document signed during the Dayton Peace Accords, and that is still in force today, working as the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 7.
One way this is measured is by identifying how many houses and apartments were reclaimed by refugees and displaced persons. However, many only reclaimed them in order to sell, exchange or rent those apartments.
- 8.
On the role of ‘connections’ in Bosnia and Herzegovina, please refer to Jansen (2015).
- 9.
I use ‘mixed families’ and ‘mixed marriage’ with a quotation mark because this is also a contested categorization, often employed in a derogatory way. Especially during the war, but also after, many ‘mixed families’ experienced situations of mistrust from their neighbors, becoming in some millieus an unacceptable social category, with children from such marriages considered particularly unacceptable by nationalist groups. Hromadžić (2015) refers to them as ‘Invisible Citizens’.
- 10.
Many of my interlocutors and friends have described how they have only ‘found out’ to be (Serbian, Bosniak or Croat) during the war.
- 11.
In many cases, however, names are more neutral and ambiguous, making hard to automatically place someone in one of these three groups.
- 12.
Top Lista Nadrealista, Episode “Rat u familiji Popuslic”. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =0-EvhjGG29I.
- 13.
See, for example, Kamusella, Tomasz (2009) The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. Palgrave Macmillan and Brigitta Busch and Hellen Kelly-Holmes (2004) Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslav Successor States. Multilingual Matters.
- 14.
The episode is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKQJhJKI58.
- 15.
Interview with N., April 12, 2015. Istočno Sarajevo. Interview conducted in English.
- 16.
A third form would be ikavian, although it is not widely used in BiH.
- 17.
Some groups do claim a third, Croatian, entity.
- 18.
Interview with DM., 11 April 2015, Istočno Sarajevo. Interview conducted in BSC.
- 19.
Interview with D., 15 April 2015, Istočno Sarajevo. Interview conducted in Portuguese.
- 20.
Panic, Katarina. ‘Bosnian Serbs’ Renaming of Language Angers Bosniaks’. Balkan Insight, 15 June 2015. Available at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-s-serb-entity-change-of-language-name-upsets-bosniaks.
- 21.
Interview with S., 7 May 2015, Central Sarajevo. Interview conducted in English.
- 22.
In this report, it is not clear why they use the terminology ‘Bosnian’ (that would designate a citizen from BiH) instead of ‘Bosniak’ (the ethnonational group formed by ‘Muslims’). It is not clear if that was a translation error or a conscious choice, even though it is clear that respondents understood it as ‘Bosniaks’
- 23.
Bugarski, Ranko (2004) Language and Boundaries in the Yugoslavian Context. In: Brigitta Busch and Helen Kelly-Holmes Language, Discourse and Borders in the Yugoslavian Successor States. Multilingual Matters.
References
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Summa, R. (2021). Introduction. In: Everyday Boundaries, Borders and Post Conflict Societies. Critical Security Studies in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55817-8_1
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