White Armband Day: From global social media campaign to transnational commemoration day

Abstract

This article is concerned with White Armband Day ( Dan Bijelih Traka), marked on 31 May in memory of the genocidal campaign against Prijedor’s non-Serb population during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95). What started spontaneously in 2012 as a global social media campaign against genocide denial has become a commemoration day marked in Prijedor, the post-Yugoslav region, across the world and in virtual spaces. Its widespread recognition and impact on alternative memory discourses rendered it one of the most successful civil society initiatives engaging in dealing with the past in the region. Drawing on a transnational mobilisation perspective, the article explores how the initiative emerged and what factors contributed to White Armband Day’s establishment as a transnational commemoration day. Findings from multi-sited research indicate that beyond rapid online mobilisation, two prerequisites have been key to its success: displacement-based (trans)local networks of Prijedorčani and its ability to mobilise young people across ethnic divisions.

Transnational Activism against Genocide Denial: Protesting Peter Handke’s Nobel Prize in Literature

“…This research challenges earlier held notions that portrayed a negative influence of diasporas (Hall and Swain 2008). Indeed, the Bosnian diaspora involved in the present example has considerable potential to make such positive contributions (e.g., Karabegović 2014;Koinova and Karabegović 2017;Karabegović 2019;Paul 2021). To explore transnational mobilization processes by diaspora entrepreneurs, researchers taking a constructivist approach to diasporas often employ canonical concepts developed by social movement studies (e.g., Sökefeld 2006;Adamson 2012;Quinsaat 2013;Koinova 2016;Koinova and Karabegović 2019).…”

“…These are the knitted Srebrenica memorial flower and the White Armband in memory of the violence in Prijedor. Both locations became synonymous with the systematic persecution of non-Serbs (Halilovich 2015;Paul 2021). For the organizers in Stockholm, who are very engaged in genocide remembrance, it was self-evident to use both symbols that signified their continuous commitment to this cause.…”