General information
Code: UL – CELSA Majsova
Period: 1.10.2022 - 30.9.2024
Project leader at FDV: izr.prof.dr. Natalija Majsova
Abstract
The project "Remembering As Resistance. Inclusive Commemorations Versus Competitive Victimhood After Mass Atrocity In The Former Yugoslavia" proposes to develop an integrative approach to the study of the complex connections between war commemoration and durable peace by investigating selected sites of war violence from the perspectives of political and cultural studies. The project focuses on the crucial case of former Yugoslavia and proposes to re-position sites of memory at the crossroads of both their material and mediatized existence, trace the interactions between top-down and grassroots memorializations, as well as highlight the social impact that the latter strive to make. Over the duration of the project, the international team will address research questions such as: What role do commemorations play in the construction of collective memory in places that have been disrupted by war violence? How do such commemorations create or hinder durable peace? And to what extent can the inclusion of (non-official) grassroots commemorations, and bottom-up initiatives more broadly, stimulate a more inclusive form of remembrance? The project zooms in on a selection of sites of extreme war atrocity, places where nationalist elites regularly evoke competitive victimhood to inflame the enemy images of the war era. These nationalist mobilizations form an obstacle to inclusive citizenship and durable peace. The team aims to: 1.) explore the connection between sites of commemoration, the construction of collective memory (and collective denial), and (the lack of) durable peace in places that have been disrupted by violent conflict, focusing on Vukovar in Croatia; 2.) map to what extent and by which mechanisms local voices and grassroots perspectives are incorporated into, or excluded from, the identified competing official versions of remembrance; 3.) analyse the political dynamics surrounding the selected sites of memory and their mediatizations. We are interested in both official and alternative (bottom-up) discourses, images and narratives connected to the sites of violence and their commemorations. The overall aim is to find out what the chances are of alternative commemorations to resist and subvert the persistence of war-mongering politics. The researchers examine their relationship with the formal institutions of commemoration and check if they can form a viable and more inclusive alternative. To do so we rely on conceptual frames and methods from political research (in particular, political anthropology) on the one hand, and humanities (cultural studies/media studies, memory studies) on the other. The innovative aspect of the project is that it breaks empirical ground by finding out when and how sites of conflict and commemoration in the former Yugoslavia might function as places of reconciliation involving all citizens, including those now often excluded. The relevance of this empirical endeavour is to bring the discussion about commemoration practices in the Balkans into the wider academic conversation on the connection between commemoration and durable peace in post-violence zones.
The phases of the project and their realization
The 2-year project will be structured through the following 4 work packages.The KU Leuven team will be in charge of WP2, while the UL team will manage WP3. Regular exchanges between the teams will assure synergies between WP2 and WP3, necessary for the foreseen scientific outcomes of the project, i.e. to the development of an integrative approach to sites of memory.
1/ Work package 1: Initial mapping of the work and source document analysis (months 1-6): after a kick-off meeting both partners in the project will lay the groundwork for the theoretical as well as the empirical research work that has to follow.
2/ Work package 2: Material remembrance culture
a) Fieldwork (months 7-18): The KUL team will conduct interviews in Bosnia-Herzegovina about the contents and results of memorial activism.
b) Data analysis (months 12-20): In analyzing the secondary and primary data from the interdisciplinary sources stated above, the KUL team shall rely, among others, on Rebecca Rogers’ critical discourse analysis (CDA), which allows, “not only a description and interpretation of discourses in social context, but also (…) an explanation of why and how discourses work.” The CDA’s role will be to reveal and contest the (hidden) power relations, constructed through language and visual means of memorialization or collective absence of memory.
3/ Work package 3: Mediatized remembrance
a) Data collection (months 7-12): The UL postdoc will compile a database for analysis of the mediatization of the three selected sites of war violence: a) films, books, performances, news, documentaries relating to the selected sites; b) secondary data relating to the corpus: distribution, director's/author's notes, media exposure, criticism, translation, reception.
b) Data analysis (months 12-20): The UL PI and postdoc UL researcher analyse the compiled database in terms of the representations, circulation, popularity, reception, and remediation of the collected mediatized memories of trauma and nostalgia related to the investigated sites (text and visual analysis, media discourse analysis, reception analysis).
4/ Work package 4: Overall management and reporting (months 1-24): The publications, reports and outreach activities coming out of this project will entail an interdisciplinary re-assessment of the peace-building and reconciliation interventions in the post-war post-Yugoslav space. The outputs of this project (incl. the interview archive, database of mediatized representations and related information) will be made available as a web source. In the second phase it will lead to min. 3 peer-reviewed academic articles. In the course of the project several moments of preliminary reporting will be organized with the aim of guaranteeing that the research team is still on the right track.
Key words
collective memory, grassroots memory politics, mediatized memory, sustainability
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG4 | Quality education
SDG5 | Gender equality
SDG16 | Peace, justice and strong intitutions
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