Mediating Post-Socialist Femininities by Nadia Kaneva

Author:Nadia Kaneva [Kaneva, Nadia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138939851
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 26408273
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Short Historical and Political Context in Bosnia and Herzegovina

As socialist Yugoslavia was violently collapsing, powerful nationalisms developed into horrendous wars in different parts of the country. BiH experienced a fierce war from 1992 to 1995, in which a range of war crimes were committed, including ethnic cleansing, the establishment of concentration camps, the destruction of physical property, massacres of civilian populations estimated at 150,000 deaths (Alenka Bartulović 2013), and rapes, where the victims were overwhelmingly Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims).1 Drawing on patriarchal logics of ethno-national superiority and territorial control, women were positioned as passive symbols and powerless targets of domination. On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement brought an end to the Bosnian war. The Agreement inscribed in law the ethnic partition between the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims. It divided BiH into two entities: the Federation of BiH, populated by mostly Bosniaks and Croats, and Republika Srpska, populated almost exclusively by Bosnian Serbs (Bartulović 2013).

Today, ethnic conflicts are not resolved (Bartulović 2013). The war marked a turn from socialist to ethno-nationalist political “democracy,” but also a transition from a socialist to neo-liberal capitalist economy that saw the creation of new borders, the disappearance of public media, education, and accessible health care, and many of the state-run factories were privatized (Anne Welle-Strand, Kristian Kjollesdal, and Nick Sitter 2010). Some of the major problems BiH faces today include corruption, clientelism, and economic under-development. BiH is one of the poorest countries in Europe, where the average monthly net salary in 2011 was €340 and, as of November 2013, 45.5 percent of the population was unemployed (Federalni Zavod za Statistiku2013). In February 2014, violent protests erupted across the country, composed of citizens from all walks of life, who were frustrated by political corruption and long-term unemployment, which has affected young women in particular (Jasmin Mujanović 2013).

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