scholarly journals Exhibiting Memories of a Besieged City. The (Uncertain) Role of Museums in Constructing Public Memory of the 1992-1995 Siege of Sarajevo

Südosteuropa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Tamara Banjeglav

Abstract The author examines museums in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and their exhibitions dealing with the city’s most traumatic event in recent history—the 1992-1995 siege. She analyses how the interpretations and re-interpretations of history in these museums have been affected by social, political, cultural, and institutional contexts, and how various ‘memory entrepreneurs’ have played a role in building the public memory of the city’s siege. The analysis focuses on, but is not limited to, three museums: the History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Tunnel Museum, and the War Childhood Museum. This discussion is supplemented by an analysis of other museums in Sarajevo that also demonstrate how the political deadlock in the country has affected the cultural sector. The author argues that the various museums to have opened in Sarajevo in recent years indeed have the potential to become crucial public spaces where authoritative notions of history, memory, and identity can be critically examined, negotiated, and contested.

Author(s):  
Cristina Garrigós

Forgetting and remembering are as inevitably linked as lifeand death. Sometimes, forgetting is motivated by a biological disorder, brain damage, or it is the product of an unconscious desire derived from a traumatic event (psychological repression). But in some cases, we can motivate forgetting consciously (thought suppression). It is through the conscious repression of memories that we can find self-preservation and move forward, although this means that we create a fable of our lives, as Nietzsche says in his essay “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life” (1997). In Jonathan Franzen’s novel, Purity (2015), forgetting is an active and conscious process by which the characters choose to forget certain episodes of their lives to be able to construct new identities. The erased memories include murder, economical privileges derived from illegal or unethical commercial processes, or dark sexual episodes. The obsession with forgetting the past links the lives of the main characters, and structures the narrative of the novel. The motivated erasure of memories becomes, thus, a way that the characters have to survive and face the present according to a (fake) narrative that they have constructed. But is motivated forgetting possible? Can one completely suppress facts in an active way? This paper analyses the role of forgetting in Franzen’s novel in relation to the need in our contemporary society to deny, hide, or erase uncomfortable data from our historical or personal archives; the need to make disappear stories which we do not want to accept, recognize, and much less make known to the public. This is related to how we manage information in the age of technology, the “selection” of what is to be the official story, and how we rewrite our own history


Author(s):  
Guillaume Heuguet

This exploratory text starts from a doctoral-unemployed experience and was triggered by the discussions within a collective of doctoral students on this particularly ambiguous status since it is situated between student, unemployed, worker, self-entrepreneur, citizen-subject of social rights or user-commuter in offices and forms. These discussions motivated the reading and commentary of a heterogeneous set of texts on unemployment, precariousness and the functioning of the institutions of the social state. This article thus focuses on the relationship between knowledge and unemployment, as embodied in the public space, in the relationship with Pôle Emploi, and in the academic literature. It articulates a threefold problematic : what is known and said publicly about unemployment? What can we learn from the very experience of the relationship with an institution like Pôle Emploi? How can these observations contribute to an understanding of social science inquiry and the political role of knowledge fromm precariousness?


Author(s):  
Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc

This chapter tackles relations between facts established at the Tribunal and acknowledgement of these in the public domain of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where three ethnically defined and mutually contesting interpretations dominate the public forum. Examining how this problem unfolds, this chapter follows the development of the public memory about the war. It intersects with the relevant International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) jurisprudence, aiming to detect potential changes in the dominant narrative. It analyses public debates whether the war was a product of Serbian aggression or a civil war within Bosnia; whether ‘ethnic cleansing’ was pre-planned by the Serbian side or an inevitable consequence of the war (examined through the Prijedor case); whether genocide was the overall aim of the Serbian side or whether it took place only in Srebrenica; and whether the Croatian side was a defender of, or aggressor in BiH (examined through the Ahmići case).


1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Baggott

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of political agents, institutions, circumstances, and ideas in the development of public health policies in Britain. The first part attempts to define public health. The second section of the article looks at the experience of the Victorian public health movement. The final part considers the re-emergence of the public health perspective. The underlying theme of the article is that an awareness of the political dimension, both contemporary and historical, improves our understanding of developments in the field of public health. The main conclusions reached are: first, that given the formidable political obstacles which exist, public health reform will only succeed if the reformers themselves operate with full awareness of the political dimension; second, that the modern public health debate is unlikely to be resolved in the short term.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara Nine

Do territorial rights include the right to exclude? This claim is often assumed to be true in territorial rights theory. And if this claim is justified, a state may have a prima facie right to unilaterally exclude aliens from state territory. But is this claim justifiable? I examine the version of territorial rights that has the most compelling story to support the right to exclude: territorial rights as a kind of property right, where ‘territory’ refers to the public and common spaces included in the domain of state jurisdiction. I analyse the work of A. J. Simmons, who develops the political theory of John Locke into one of the most well-articulated and defended theories of territorial rights as a kind of property right. My main argument is that Simmons’ justification for rights of exclusion, which are derived from individual rights of self-government, does not apply to many kinds of public spaces. An upshot of this analysis is that most Lockean-based theories of territorial rights will have a hard time justifying the right to exclude as a prima facie right held by states against aliens.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 805-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Kenyon Lischer

AbstractAfter a genocide, leaders compete to fill the postwar power vacuum and establish their preferred story of the past. Memorialisation, including through building memorials, provides a cornerstone of political power. The dominant public narrative determines the plotline; it labels victims and perpetrators, interprets history, assigns meaning to suffering, and sets the post-atrocity political agenda. Therefore, ownership of the past, in terms of the public account, is deeply contested. Although many factors affect the emergence of a dominant atrocity narrative, this article highlights the role of international interactions with genocide memorials, particularly how Western visitors, funders, and consultants influence the government's narrative. Western consumption of memorials often reinforces aspects of dark tourism that dehumanise victims and discourage adequate context for the uninformed visitor. Funding and consultation provided by Western states and organisations – while offering distinct benefits – tends to encourage a homogenised atrocity narrative, which reflects the values of the global human rights regime and existing standards of memorial design rather than privileging the local particularities of the atrocity experience. As shown in the cases of Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia, Western involvement in public memory projects often strengthens the power of government narratives, which control the present by controlling the past.


2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
LLOYD BOWEN

ABSTRACTCharles I and his clerical supporters are often said to have been wary of print and public discussion, only entering the public sphere reluctantly and to comparatively little effect during the political crisis of 1642. This article challenges such views by focusing on the neglected role of official forms of print such as proclamations, declarations, and state prayers and their promulgation in the nation's churches. It traces the ways in which the king utilized the network of parish clergy to broadcast his message and mobilize support during the Scottish crisis of 1639–40 and again in the ‘paper war’ of 1642. The article argues that traditional forms of printed address retained their potency and influence despite the proliferation of polemical pamphlets and newsbooks. The significance of these mobilizations is demonstrated by the profound disquiet they caused among the king's Covenanter and parliamentarian opponents as well as the ‘good effects’ they had in generating support for the royalist cause.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 650
Author(s):  
Matheus Da Cruz e Zica ◽  
Patrícia Barros de Oliveira

Este artigo procura elucidar o debate que se constituiu pela imprensa ao longo das décadas de 1870 e 1880 nas províncias brasileiras da Paraíba e de Pernambuco em torno do modelo francês de monarquia parlamentar que contrastava com o federalismo republicano dos EUA. Assumindo o lugar de formadora da opinião pública a imprensa procurou trazer destaque para a questão do Espaço Público na medida em que modos distintos de se lidar com ele estavam em jogo em cada um daqueles modelos políticos internacionais idealizados. Também foram mapeadas algumas relações que os jornais analisados indiciaram entre os debates sobre o Espaço Público e as retóricas de modernidade que os acompanhavam. Com frequência a questão da ciência e da técnica pareceu eclipsar a dimensão do conflito que é próprio do universo político e da esfera pública, unificando os olhares em torno de um deslumbramento com as benfeitorias materiais que o século prometia.Palavras chave: Espaço Público, Formação, Imprensa. AbstractThis article seeks to elucidate the debate that was constituted by the press throughout the 1870s and 1880s in the Brazilian provinces of Paraíba and Pernambuco around the French model of parliamentary monarchy that contrasted with the republicanism of the USA. Taking over the role of public opinion maker, the press sought to highlight the issue of the Public Space since that distinct ways of dealing with it was considered in each of those idealized international political models. This article also mapped some relations that the newspapers analyzed betrayed between the debates on the Public Space and the rhetoric of modernity that accompanied them. Often the question of science and technique seemed to eclipse the dimension of conflict that is proper to the political universe and the public sphere, unifying the glances around a dazzle with the material improvements that the century promised.Keywords: Public Space, Formation, Press.  ResumenEste artículo busca esclarecer el debate que se constituyó por la prensa a lo largo de las décadas de 1870 y 1880 en las provincias brasileñas de Paraíba y de Pernambuco en torno al modelo francés de monarquía parlamentaria que contrastaba con el federalismo republicano de EUA. Asumiendo el lugar de formadora de la opinión pública la prensa trató de destacar la cuestión del Espacio Público en la medida en que modos distintos de lidiar con él estaban en juego en cada uno de aquellos modelos políticos internacionales idealizados. También se han mapeado algunas relaciones que los periódicos analizados indiciaron entre los debates sobre el espacio público y las retóricas de modernidad que los acompañaban. Con frecuencia la cuestión de la ciencia y de la técnica parecía eclipsar la dimensión del conflicto que es propio del universo político y de la esfera pública, unificando las miradas en torno a un deslumbramiento con las mejoras materiales que el siglo prometía.Palabras clave: Espacio Público, Formación, Prensa.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Aid Mršić ◽  
◽  
Larisa Softić-Gasal ◽  

The public service, which should be the guardian of the identity of national minorities, fell under the political pressure. In this way, it came out of the scope of its actions. Leading people in independent media believe that the role of the public service is crucial in protecting national minorities.But the media can not do it alone. First of all, the state must regulate, and respect what it has brought. With strong strategies and the inclusion of national minorities in all social trends, it is possible to achieve, not fully, but partially, the equality of all those who liveon the territory of BiH.On the other hand, the public service must respect what the state says. The Communications Regulatory Agency is obliged to impose rules in an adequate manner and at the same time to monitor how much the media (public service) meets its obligations.


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