Media memory activism in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

Taking Bosnia-Herzegovina as a case study, this article examines how memory activists, acting at the meso-level, use digital media to implement various counter-memory strategies in relation to the war of 1992–1995. A variety of practices at the margins of official historical discourses, which are still dominated by victimization and hatred, are examined and examples from both the literature and original empirical data are used to show how, in an extremely tense political climate, memory activists can use diverse strategies and tools to allow new representations of the past to circulate, bringing about mnemonic change. I suggest that memory activists in BiH, although operating in a public sphere governed by ethnonationalist divisions and political parallelism, use digital media as an arena, space, or repository for counter-memory narratives. Supported by thematic analysis, this interdisciplinary research paper responds to a need for contemporary empirical research on media memory activism and opens new perspectives for future interdisciplinary studies of these issues in other divided societies.