Management of ambiguity: favours and flexibility in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This article ethnographically outlines how one woman politician in a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina used favours to help ‘get things done’, becoming perceived as a ‘goddess’ who ‘spent herself’ for the sake of others. The article suggests that such people managed to gather power through the paradox of keeping‐while‐giving (Weiner, . Inalienable possessions. The paradox of keeping‐while‐giving. Berkeley: California UP). People able to grant numerous favours in multiple public and private arenas kept aside the position of the person able to manage ambiguity, which was part of the new ad hoc, flexible forms of governance, exercised by both the international and the local actors in the country.

Drawing on the continuum: a war and post-war political economy of gender-based violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Such processes are just one example of strategies used by economic, ethno-nationalist elites to exploit labor and resources in a depressed postwar economy, while simultaneously diminishing the state's capacity to provide welfare protection for its citizens. It is an open secret that securing a job in the public administration requires access to personal networks and the distribution of bribes, which only raises entry barriers for women who do not have access to such social capital and to such male-dominated networks (Brković 2015). Some 62 percent of Bosnia's 142 municipalities are underdeveloped or extremely underdeveloped, with some smaller towns turned into economic wastelands due to physical destruction and population displacement during the war and the uneven distribution of post-war economic gains (UNDP 2014, 27;Pugh 2017).…”

Facing Fear and Responding with Courage: Understanding How Fear Constitutes the “Emotional Citizenship” of Voluntary Returnees to Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Brković (2015: 271) explores how clientelism and patronage (veze and štele) manifest themselves in post-war BiH, namely in the town of Bijeljina, by focusing on "the logic of ethics, compassion and humanitarian sentiment -quite different from the logic of citizenship rights". One of the key findings in Brković (2015) is that the major transfer of responsibility for welfare protection from the state to local communities created an ambiguity regarding who in the local community is responsible for implementing these policies and whether this is a legal duty of the state or a question of individual goodwill, thus creating a fertile ground for clientelism and patronage. Based on research conducted in an apartment complex in a Sarajevo suburb, instead of ambiguity in the relations between the state and citizens, Jansen (2015) found a major yearning of BiH citizens for stability, certainty, predictability and a return to "normal lives".…”

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 1

“…Paying attention to the use of local idioms for informal practices can provide a fruitful method for questioning such 'one model fits all' approaches to investigating informal activities by allowing for a nuanced, case-specific approach to the 126 phenomena. Because they often take place in the 'grey zones' that exist between the legal and illegal, and the moral and immoral, language and gesture are important vehicles for expressing that which must remain unsaid (Brković 2015). Taking local expressions and uses of language seriously can thus provide greater insight into the 'knowing smiles' and 'open secrets' ) through which various forms of official and unofficial exchanges operate, as well as the spaces of 'productive ambivalence' created by such transactions .…”