Conjuring "the people"

Abstract

In June 2013, a breakdown in the routine functioning of state bureaucracy sparked the largest and up to that point most significant wave of protests in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina, named the Bosnian Babylution. The protest centered on the plight of newborn babies who, because of this particular administrative problem, could no longer be issued key documents, even to travel outside the country for life-saving medical care. These events exposed the profound nature of the representational crisis gripping this postwar, postsocialist, and postintervention state that has emerged at the intersection of ethnic hyper-representation and the lived experience of the collapse of biopolitical care. Yet, as this analysis shows, this crisis has also helped unleash new forms of political desire for revolutionary rupture and reconstitution of the postwar political.

Nonelectoral Participation in Deeply Divided Societies: Transforming Consociations from the Ground Up?

“…Likewise, Bosnian activists acknowledge to view nonelectoral mobilization as a step of the process for civic education and trust building across diverse groups in society (Kurtović 2018;Belyaeva 2017;Hasić and Karabegović 2018). They characterize this long-term shift in civic consciousness as their core goal, as opposed to short-term political change.…”

“…Here, ensuring continuous visibility of other identities has been essentially akin to political education in society, "changing the conversation around rights and participative democracy in Northern Ireland" (Representative of LGBTQ Advocacy Group, 2018). Likewise, Bosnian activists acknowledge nonelectoral mobilization as a step of the process for civic education and trust building across diverse groups in society (Kurtović 2018;Belyaeva 2017;Hasić and Karabegović 2018). They characterize this long-term shift in civic consciousness as their core goal, as opposed to short-term political change.…”

“…Accounts argue that spontaneous emergence of the protest and later, plenum movement channeled citizens' frustrations illustrating the blockage within the Bosnian consociational system to the advancement of non-ethnic issues (Kurtović 2018). Moreover, the street-based protest of 2013 has only been partially translated into alternative political structures of citizen assembly, a phenomenon Eric Gordy refers to as "alterpolitics" (2015).…”

“…The focus is on how people live, daily-health, education, jobs" (cited in Murtagh 2016, 162). Plenums therefore impacted how some concerns of citizens were represented but did so at a local level of municipalities or cantons: While some cooperation between citizen assemblies across FBiH took place, there was markedly limited progress in extending horizontally, from FBiH to Republika Srpska, or vertically, to inputting debates on representation at the state level (Kurtović 2018). The limited engagement at the state level, across the entity borders of FBiH and Republika Srpska, and even across cantonal borders further points to the adverse impact the multiplied policy-making arenas have on citizens' perceptions of NEP as sensible (Vráblíková 2014).…”

Public Spaces and Conflict Transformation: From Mostar’s Old Bridge to Its United World College

“…Substantial research exists, however, which demonstrates that citizens of B&H are challenging the monopoly of ethnic nationalism (Lippman, 2019;Omaljev, 2016;Pobric & Robinson, 2019) and engaging in civic activism based upon other shared identities. Mujanović (2018), Kurtović (2018), Milan (2019), andLai (2020) each have studied the work of social movements and civil society against state and corporate decisions in B&H. Belyaeva (2017) analyzes how protests against economic policies broadened to campaigns against government corruption. Carabelli (2018) examines the role of artists with respect to both art shows and youth art programs.…”