Re-Making Kozarac

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 1-27

3. The Army of the Dispossessed

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 29-62

4. Return

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 63-87

5. A Community of Mourners: Collective and Personal Rituals of Loss

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 89-123

6. Omarska

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 125-147

7. Kozarac.ba: Online Community as a Network Bridge

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 149-166

8. Economic Sustainability in a Land of Corruption

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 167-189

9. Conclusion: On Return as Redress

   • Sebina Sivac-Bryant

   Pages 191-207

10. Back Matter

    Pages 209-214

    PDF

This book explores agency, reconciliation and minority return within the context of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. It focuses on a community in North-West Bosnia, which successfully reversed the worst episode of ethnic cleansing prior to Srebrenica by fighting for return, and then establishing one of the only successful examples of contested minority return in the town of Kozarac. The book is a result of a longitudinal, decade-long study of a group of people who discovered a remarkable level of agency and resilience, largely without external support, and despite many of the people and institutions who were responsible for their violent expulsion remaining in place. 


Re-Making Kozarac considers how a community's traumatic experiences were utilised as a motivational vehicle for return, and contrasts their pragmatic approach to local compromise with the ill-informed and largely unsuccessful international projects that try to cast them as powerless victims. Importantly, the book offers critical reflections on the interventions of the trauma and reconciliation industries, which can be more harmful than is currently realised. It will be of great interest to scholars of criminology, anthropology and international relations.

• criminology
• international relations
• war studies
• military studies
• post-conflict
• identity
• ethnicity
• ethnic cleansing
• trauma
• anthropology
• minorities
• intervention
• NGOs
• memory
• funerals
• war crimes
• women

“Re-Making Kozarac fills a significant gap in the scholarship about post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina where, despite the profusion of academic studies about the political system, reconciliation and victimhood, case studies focusing on the grass-roots community level remain scarce. … it offers valuable lessons for researchers as well as practitioners in the fields of post-conflict peacebuilding and transitional justice as it shakes ingrained assumptions about victimhood, trauma and reconciliation.” (Sarah Correia, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, February, 2017)

“Sebina Sivac-Bryant’s anthropological study focuses on the postconflict society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Specifically, the author reconstructsthe return process of Bosniaks to their former hometown Kozarac. … Sivac-Bryant makes an important contribution to the understanding of postconflict societies. … she has succeeded in compiling a very relevant work on postconflict societies.” (Manuela Brenner, Südosteuropa, Vol. 65 (4), 2017)

“A book about not just suffering, but survival – and return, literally… It starts with one of the little-told phenomena of recent military history, that of ‘The Army of the Dispossessed’, made up mostly of soldiers who had survived the camps and Serbian ‘cleansing’, fighting to go home, and documents the challenges that followed in re-making “the biggest little city in the world.” Sebina knows this story from the inside – and her book is key to understanding Bosnia, Europe and the resilience of humankind.” (Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian journalist)

“The author offers a compelling and provocative ethnography of Muslim return, which shows how victims of ethnic cleansing, usually described as ‘passive’ and ‘helpless’, take the initiative and reclaim their livelihoods.. The book holds up a mirror to well-intentioned transitional justice, reconciliation, and psycho-social interventions initiatives which often fail to address the real issues that returnees face. It also very interestingly explores the role of online community platforms in restoring the damaged social networks of displaced communities.” (Prof. Dr. Ger Duijzings, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Regensburg, Germany)

• Independent scholar, London, United Kingdom

  Sebina Sivac-Bryant

Sebina Sivac-Bryant is an anthropologist specialising in human responses to challenging situations. Born in Kozarac, Bosnia-Hercegovina, she lived in Zagreb, Limerick and London after being expelled from her home town in 1992. She holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from University College London, UK.

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