Sarajevo Under Siege : Anthropology in Wartime / Ivana Maček.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maček, Ivana, author.

Series:

Ethnography of political violence.

The Ethnography of Political Violence

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political violence--Bosnia and Herzegovina--Sarajevo.

Political violence.

Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)--History--Siege, 1992-1996.

Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 256 p. :) ill., maps ;

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2016]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Sarajevo Under Siege offers a richly detailed account of the lived experiences of ordinary people in this multicultural city between 1992 and 1996, during the war in the former Yugoslavia. Moving beyond the shelling, snipers, and shortages, it documents the coping strategies people adopted and the creativity with which they responded to desperate circumstances.Ivana Maček, an anthropologist who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, argues that the division of Bosnians into antagonistic ethnonational groups was the result rather than the cause of the war, a view that was not only generally assumed by Americans and Western Europeans but also deliberately promoted by Serb, Croat, and Muslim nationalist politicians. Nationalist political leaders appealed to ethnoreligious loyalties and sowed mistrust between people who had previously coexisted peacefully in Sarajevo. Normality dissolved and relationships were reconstructed as individuals tried to ascertain who could be trusted.Over time, this ethnography shows, Sarajevans shifted from the shock they felt as civilians in a city under siege into a "soldier" way of thinking, siding with one group and blaming others for the war. Eventually, they became disillusioned with these simple rationales for suffering and adopted a "deserter" stance, trying to take moral responsibility for their own choices in spite of their powerless position. The coexistence of these contradictory views reflects the confusion Sarajevans felt in the midst of a chaotic war.Maček respects the subjectivity of her informants and gives Sarajevans' own words a dignity that is not always accorded the viewpoints of ordinary citizens. Combining scholarship on political violence with firsthand observation and telling insights, this book is of vital importance to people who seek to understand the dynamics of armed conflict along ethnonational lines both within and beyond Europe.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Part I. Life Under Siege

1. Civilian, Soldier, Deserter

2. Death and Creativity in Wartime

3. Struggling for Subsistence

4. Tests of Trust

Part II. Ethnonationalist Reinventions

5. Political and Economic Transformation

6. Language and Symbols

7. Mobilizing Religion

8. Reorienting Social Relationships

9. Reconceptualizing War

Epilogue

Notes

Glossary

References

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-245) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780812294385

0812294386

OCLC:

1016613009