“…Parties representing Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks were less enthusiastic about collecting identity data. Croat parties feared that a census would demonstrate the extent of population decline amongst Croats, whereas for Bosniak parties the concern was that it would confirm the results of ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from areas such as the Drina Valley and the northern RS (Armakolas and Maksimović : 70; Perry : 5–6).…”
Section: The 2013 Census In Bosnia and Herzegovinamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…One video, for example, featured men tearing tape from their mouths to declare ‘ Ja sam Bošnjak, vjera mi je Islam, jezik mi je Bosanski ’ [‘I am Bosniak, my religion is Islam, my language is Bosnian’] . Other videos were notable – and controversial – for featuring children discussing the importance of Bosniak identity (Armakolas and Maksimović : 60) . Much of this campaign was not centrally directed, as one of its leaders explained in an interview: I didn't work on the internet campaign [but] when the census ended in October and when I went online, I typed in ‘ Bitno je biti Bošnjak ’ and I saw 3 million results – people created some improvised videos in the villages … banners …”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This category survived through to the final Yugoslav census in 1991, but in 1993, the Bošnjački sabor [Bosniak Assembly] officially adopted the name ‘Bosniak’ (Bougarel : 143; Bringa : 33–36). The 2013 census was the first in which people could identify under this label (Armakolas and Maksimović : 71). This opportunity, however, came with the possibility that Bosniaks might split themselves between several descriptions.…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This ‘danger’ was perceived to stem partly from Bosniaks' status as the largest of the three constituent peoples and also from the actions of the civic campaign, which were thought to be more likely to influence Bosniaks than Serbs or Croats. As Armakolas and Maksimović (: 71) argue: [W]ith Bosnian Serbs and Croats by and large attracted by nation‐building processes of their neighbouring mother states, Bosniaks are largely alone in promoting the idea of tying national identification with an independent Bosnian state. However, this leaves them exposed to the attractiveness of political versions of ‘Bosnianness’.…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Where citizens were working abroad temporarily for a period of less than 12 months, the law specified that they should be included in the count, but some diaspora groups argued that the census should also include non‐resident citizens (Perry : 57), and portrayed their exclusion as an attempt to legalise wartime expulsions of Bosniaks, particularly from the RS. A Bosniak diaspora organisation in Chicago, for instance, stated in its web magazine that ‘[t]he census introduces the final phase of eliminating refugees and displaced persons: their removal from the population register’ (quoted in Armakolas and Maksimović : 86). As a compromise, a supplemental form was made available online, allowing members of the diaspora to be counted, but not as part of the census proper (Perry : 57).…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
Bosnia and Herzegovina's first post‐war population census, held in 2013, was accompanied by campaigns associated with each of the country's three main ethnic groups, which sought to maximise their share of the recorded population. These campaigns were challenged by a rival ‘civic’ campaign that instead stressed the right to freedom of self‐identification, however. This article compares the aims, methods and framings used by this civic campaign with those of the most prominent of the ‘ethnic’ campaigns – that of Bosniak ethnic entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the two campaigns were each motivated by a combination of symbolic motives, centred on recognition and highlighting discrimination, and instrumental motives relating to the country's power‐sharing institutions. The limited success of the civic campaign in countering the messages of its rival ethnic campaigns demonstrates the difficulties that civic movements face in mobilising citizens in consociational democracies such as BiH.
“…Parties representing Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks were less enthusiastic about collecting identity data. Croat parties feared that a census would demonstrate the extent of population decline amongst Croats, whereas for Bosniak parties the concern was that it would confirm the results of ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from areas such as the Drina Valley and the northern RS (Armakolas and Maksimović : 70; Perry : 5–6).…”
Section: The 2013 Census In Bosnia and Herzegovinamentioning
confidence: 99%
“…One video, for example, featured men tearing tape from their mouths to declare ‘ Ja sam Bošnjak, vjera mi je Islam, jezik mi je Bosanski ’ [‘I am Bosniak, my religion is Islam, my language is Bosnian’] . Other videos were notable – and controversial – for featuring children discussing the importance of Bosniak identity (Armakolas and Maksimović : 60) . Much of this campaign was not centrally directed, as one of its leaders explained in an interview: I didn't work on the internet campaign [but] when the census ended in October and when I went online, I typed in ‘ Bitno je biti Bošnjak ’ and I saw 3 million results – people created some improvised videos in the villages … banners …”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This category survived through to the final Yugoslav census in 1991, but in 1993, the Bošnjački sabor [Bosniak Assembly] officially adopted the name ‘Bosniak’ (Bougarel : 143; Bringa : 33–36). The 2013 census was the first in which people could identify under this label (Armakolas and Maksimović : 71). This opportunity, however, came with the possibility that Bosniaks might split themselves between several descriptions.…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…This ‘danger’ was perceived to stem partly from Bosniaks' status as the largest of the three constituent peoples and also from the actions of the civic campaign, which were thought to be more likely to influence Bosniaks than Serbs or Croats. As Armakolas and Maksimović (: 71) argue: [W]ith Bosnian Serbs and Croats by and large attracted by nation‐building processes of their neighbouring mother states, Bosniaks are largely alone in promoting the idea of tying national identification with an independent Bosnian state. However, this leaves them exposed to the attractiveness of political versions of ‘Bosnianness’.…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Where citizens were working abroad temporarily for a period of less than 12 months, the law specified that they should be included in the count, but some diaspora groups argued that the census should also include non‐resident citizens (Perry : 57), and portrayed their exclusion as an attempt to legalise wartime expulsions of Bosniaks, particularly from the RS. A Bosniak diaspora organisation in Chicago, for instance, stated in its web magazine that ‘[t]he census introduces the final phase of eliminating refugees and displaced persons: their removal from the population register’ (quoted in Armakolas and Maksimović : 86). As a compromise, a supplemental form was made available online, allowing members of the diaspora to be counted, but not as part of the census proper (Perry : 57).…”
Section: Bitno Je Biti Bošnjak: the Bosniak Campaignmentioning
Bosnia and Herzegovina's first post‐war population census, held in 2013, was accompanied by campaigns associated with each of the country's three main ethnic groups, which sought to maximise their share of the recorded population. These campaigns were challenged by a rival ‘civic’ campaign that instead stressed the right to freedom of self‐identification, however. This article compares the aims, methods and framings used by this civic campaign with those of the most prominent of the ‘ethnic’ campaigns – that of Bosniak ethnic entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the two campaigns were each motivated by a combination of symbolic motives, centred on recognition and highlighting discrimination, and instrumental motives relating to the country's power‐sharing institutions. The limited success of the civic campaign in countering the messages of its rival ethnic campaigns demonstrates the difficulties that civic movements face in mobilising citizens in consociational democracies such as BiH.
The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.
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