Funder and facilitator: Swedish development aid aimed at cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995–2008

Abstract

The paper investigates the relationship between the Swedish development agency Sida and Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), a facilitating organisation in the field of cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) following the Bosnia War. From 1995 to 2008 CHwB was the only NGO in BiH working to preserve cultural heritage, and was almost exclusively funded by Sida. From having been an organisation focusing on the restoration of historic monuments, CHwB transformed into becoming an NGO facilitating social and economic development. The paper suggests that CHwB gradually changed from having a very particular position of working with the preservation of an ethnically diverse cultural heritage with the aim of promoting reconciliation, to one where it needed to focus on reconstruction and its implications for economic development. By analysing a large number of key documents using Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis this change is interpreted in relation to changes taking place within the landscape of international aid and post-conflict recovery. ARTICLE HISTORY AimCultural heritage was frequently targeted in the Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s. (Vos 2015) One reason was that historical sites and buildings such as mosques, churches and old residential houses represented ethnic and religious communities. (Bevan 2006; Coward 2009) Since then heritage sites have been restored or even reconstructed for a number of reasons. There is still today a lack of knowledge on the wider implications of architectural interventions in conflict areas, and with what purpose they have been carried out. (Charlesworth 2006; Viejo-Rose 2013) The reconstruction of cultural heritage is a particular branch of post-conflict reconstruction and has been a stage for international actors such as UNESCO, the EU and major aid funders to display and carry through their agendas. Often it has been thought that reconciliation can be reached by working physically with the conservation or even construction of cultural heritage, but today we know it is not so easy to turn former targets of violence into symbols of peaceFurthermore, recent research has argued that cultural heritage should not be understood firstly as a collection of material objects, but as a celebration of cultural memories and identities. (Kalman 2017) There is a need to further scrutinize the reasons, choices, and ethics behind international interventions in heritage reconstruction following armed conflicts, in order to better understand the dynamics of the landscape involving aid agencies, organisations carrying out the projects and the receiving communities. In this article, we examine the relationship between a funder, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the receiving NGO, Cultural CONTACT Malin Stengård