The Single Story from Academia;

Narratives of the Bosnian War

Space and other limitations of unpopular or alternative thought

Coding the coders and their coding

Viktorija Pesic

BSc Thesis 15 hp

Political Science with profile of crisis management and security

Extension Course

Fall term 2021

Supervisor: Arita Holmberg

Word amount: 12062

Viktorija Pesic Thesis

Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 3
Foreword .......................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4
Research problem ............................................................................................................. 4
Research aim .................................................................................................................... 6
Theoretical and empirical aim................................................................................................. 6
Research question ............................................................................................................. 7
Previous research .............................................................................................................. 8
Method........................................................................................................................... 13
Critical narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis ..................................................... 14
Model for analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Material ................................................................................................................................ 15
Theoretical framework .................................................................................................... 17
Poststructuralism .................................................................................................................. 17
Constructivism ...................................................................................................................... 19
Knowledge production .......................................................................................................... 21
Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 21
David Campbell- National Deconstruction ............................................................................ 22
Lene Hansen- Security as Practice ........................................................................................ 26
Mary Kaldor- New and Old Wars ......................................................................................... 31
Olivera Simic- Challenging Bosnian Women’s Identity as Rape Victims, as Unending Victims:
The ‘other’ sex in Times of War 2012.................................................................................... 35
Jessica M. Smith- Disrupting Discourses of Victimhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina 2016 ........... 37
Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 38
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 39
Future research ............................................................................................................... 41
List of Sources/ Bibliography ........................................................................................... 42

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Abstract

A study on influential workings of scholars dealing with the Bosnian war. The narratives and

discourses discussed and reproduced. Findings of alternative or unpopular narratives that

encounter limitation when presenting their results shows how the field of conflict studies have

‘decided perception’ or even bias towards certain narratives. The field of research is not

unaffected by the societal discourses especially from a western point of view, the reproducing

of narratives or even relevance for research lays in if certain actors are involved or not. The

study investigates the work of Campbell, Hansen and Kaldor. Then two articles of feminist

security studies are analyzed of how their research was encountered by the field and the

importance of widened narratives, to keep widening the understanding of the conflict.

Especially when new tensions of conflict arise in the region.

Foreword

I have grown up with stories about the Bosnian war. My mother is Bosnian Serb from a border

town. I have not experienced the war firsthand, however, I have seen how broken a society

becomes after conflict and how challenging the healing process is. I remember not being

allowed to swim in the river Sava because there were still mines in the water and the abandoned

bombed houses in the villages that had wilderness growing out of the crashed windows. I wish

for myself and my generation to be a part of the healing and long-term peacebuilding when

tensions arise.

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Introduction

In high school, I had the opportunity to read Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie.

A book on the civil war of Nigeria written from an alternative perspective. The author held

some years later a popular Ted Talk with the title The Danger of a Single Story. Stories are

constructed through narratives. This essay wants to examine and analyze material with the same

purpose, to investigate dominant narratives of the Bosnian war and discuss why some narratives

took up more space and dominated over time. Furthermore, specifically narratives produced or

repeated from academia and how these have limited or shrined the space for alternative thought

of narrative on the Bosnian war. The theoretical base of poststructuralism and constructivism

will guide us through the material and to see how knowledge is constituted in time and space.

The field of international relations and more specifically the field of peace and conflict research

is where books and articles of interest for this subject will be found.

Research problem

The Bosnian war is sometimes being referred to as a part of the Yugoslav war 1989-1995

(Ramet 1996; Campbell 1999; Hansen 2006). How we refer to war and conflict, what stories

we tell and what narrative takes the spotlight matters. Almost all critical school of thinking

agrees that there is power in perception and even more if it can be changed through narrative.

The reality is simply a subjective perception that we base upon what we are told and our

experiences of what is true. We know the brain from a neurological aspect must sort and

prioritize to be able to attain new knowledge (perceptions). Hence, if we investigate the

narratives of conflict this is where perceptions become a matter of life and death. Politicians

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and other leaders in a society of conflict will show different objectives and aims for the narrative

that they try to create or appeal to.

However, what can be said for academia? Are researchers able to objectively research conflict?

What are the risks of reproducing narrative to causes and consequences of conflict? What is

limiting in the field of research? Is there a dominant narrative that leads scholars on to have the

same perception? What is to be said about time and space for alternative narratives?

In this essay, popular researchers and their works on the Bosnian War will be researched

through a narrative/discourse inspired analysis to identify semiotic markers and what language

is used and the milieu of the scholars. Bosnia and Herzegovina served as the perfect example

for some of their theoretical approaches. The scholars themselves and their field will also be a

part of the background to map out the analysis. This is to understand the environment the works

have been made in. The Bosnian war settled through the Dayton Accords where territorial and

ethnical differences were to be central in the new constitution created for the new state Bosnia

and Herzegovina (BiH). In hindsight we can see that the constitution was solution to end the

war but not for lasting peace and a prosperous society. Peace cannot be done without democracy

and the democratic struggles are present and are not improving accordingly to the development

of time. BiH has an ongoing political crisis rooted in the tensions from the conflict. During the

year 2021 a law passed in BiH making it illegal to deny that Srebrenica was not genocide. This

caused Bosnian Serb representatives to start a process on withdrawal from common institutions

most remarkably the BiH military power (Brezar, 2021). This sparks the thought that perhaps

we did not understand the conflict, the people, and the political region. We can state that being

objective is impossible but avoiding bias should be of interest and certainly of not reproducing

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bias. The constant expansion of the field and its definitions to try to grasp the complexity of

reality of conflict.

Research aim

My research aim is to analyze how narratives constitutes knowledge specifically from academia

on the Bosnian war, and how these narratives have limited alternative thought and narrative and

how even critical thinkers and researchers play into limiting narratives. These narratives create

indirectly and sometimes directly consequences for the future of the people and prosperity of a

society. Furthermore, the importance of letting the past be alive, so that we do not limit our

future, because beginnings and endings are only a matter of perception. To encourage further

research on complex realities and subjective perception, to keep proving how identities and

norms are not fixed but based on the context and especially the understanding of the context.

Furthermore, increasing understanding for bias and perception from scholars and creation of

models and theories that can code data into certain narratives.

Narratives are perspectives of stories, events or even reality. Moreover, narratives are mirroring

our identity to construct and reconstruct itself.

Theoretical and empirical aim

This essay will primarily have a theoretical aim although through a specific empirical topic, the

Bosnian War. The theoretical aim is to critically study some peace and conflict studies and if

there are limitations and if so, what those are, to their analytical approaches. This through the

scholars themselves and their field and the work they have created. The empirical aim lays in

the fact that if the conflict had straightforward answers to causes and solutions there would not

be any tensions present today. This is not unique for the Bosnian War; many conflicts bare the

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complexity of competing narratives that divides the perception of reality for present and future

generations. Conflicts create an extreme environment for identities to form even for the groups

not partaking in the conflict. Therefore, the field of conflict and peace studies needs to be

continuously critically assessed to stretch the knowledge of potentially creating tools for better

peace building and conflict solutions.

Research question

What are the risks of reproducing narratives to causes and consequences of conflict? What is

limiting in the field of research? Is there a dominant narrative that leads scholars on to have the

same perception? What is to be said for ‘alternative’ narratives on the conflict?

The relevance for researching researchers’ narratives

We look to academia and research for expertise in any given area. The production of knowledge

is always done through a filter of subjectivism and certain narratives. It might be impossible to

research from an objective perspective because the person writing will always have their set of

experiences and values influencing the research and results. When we look to narratives of

conflicts it can have life or death related consequences or in this case of understanding the

Bosnian war and how the ‘stories we tell’ still influence the way we grasp ‘reality’. Some

academical works, most, in hindsight of the Bosnian war, are interesting to view particularly to

understand why certain narratives persist over time and how they are influencing the research

of post conflict studies of the Bosnian war today. Hence, the academical contributions stem

from an attempt of complex analysis of conflict that tries to explain subjective realities so that

we can foresee and understand future tensions. The reflexivity can be done through the

individual’s own process of research. However, this process can be encouraged from other parts

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in research. Furthermore, there is a need to grasp an understanding or stay critical to the forms

of research conducted, what is the socializing aspects of writing about peace related versus

conflict related studies. Does the field of international relations constitute certain identities to

form and to dominate regardless of background of the scholar?

Previous research

The socializing aspect of meaningful knowledge is what I find interesting this I have found in

previous research. The following shows similar approaches to study impact of scholars and

their way of thinking that can lead to specific results, perceptions, and narratives.

Jan Hallenberg wrote the demise of the Soviet Union- Analysing the collapse of a State. In this

book Hallenberg compares how different researchers from the era of cold war discussed and

foretell or forecasted the future of the Soviet Union. The researchers compared were from USA,

France, and Sweden. These were sovietologists, scholars of the field of analyzing the

developments of the Soviet Union. The interesting take from this book is the limitations of

models and theories of International Relations and that many scholars relied on these to

understand the Soviet Union. The other take is that perception of the individual deeply

influences the outcome of the results (Hallenberg, 2002). Another thought-provoking result is

that of how researchers experienced pressure to foretell the future of the Soviet Union for policy

reasons, and that on-going policy or stance taken by the scholar’s home nation would also

influence how ‘neutral’ or critical one would be of the soviet reforms.

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This resonates with thoughts of Amitav Acharya when looking into the limitations of models

of theories of International Relations (IR). Acharya criticizes the basic notions of IR to be

limited to western thought and how these limit scholars and how production of knowledge and

research filters through the same western world view. This chain cannot be broken if not looked

to the historical examples of what has been influencing over time the development of the field.

The postcolonial idea of how western ideas has dominated and still dominates every aspect of

international and global politics. Interesting takes from the article is how liberal democracies

are considered peaceful, however that is peace within their own borders. The cold war is

considered cold for not engaging in heated war between the two superpowers while doing

exactly that on soil outside their own borders. The suffering of people and lives lost to proxy-

war is still considered to be during a ‘peaceful’ time. This is a rather postcolonial world view

of ‘the West and Rest’. Acharya suggests a global IR that promotes regionalism (Acharya,

2014).

Furthermore, thoughts on the dominance of the American approach are discussed by Brettle

and Cheng (2019). They define the American approach to IR not being limited to geographical

orientation or to American matters per se. The American approach in IR consists of a cognitive

framework and set of methods that can make any scholar of the world ‘American’. Cheng and

Brittle dissect Hoffman’s thought that international relations are American social science. This

thought they are agreeing with to some extent due to the global dominance. An interesting take

from this article is how they define the American approach to include certainty in the science,

positivism, and rationality. Hence, the study of state interaction is possible to be proven and

certain. While critical thinkers, postmodernists and constructivists would have a harder time

agreeing with ‘certainty’. This way of thinking, this cognitive framework creates limitations

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when approaching social phenomena such as conflict. If we are to agree that the human is

irrational at times, how can we expect human led states to be rational.

“… And, while the readership of those journals is typically

restricted to an academic audience, the non-academic world is exposed to ideas

generated by peace and conflict scholars (Paris 2011) when those ideas are filtered

through government reports, journalistic accounts, and even a dedicated Wikipedia

page”

This quote from Bright and Gledhill (2018) shows how the works and thoughts of scholars

filters down to everyday societal developments, such as policy reforms or reports. The thoughts

and knowledge produced does have a natural impact on the outside world of academia and this

is one important aspect to how nothing is produced in a fixed setting in social sciences. The

environment can to some extent be controlled by research in natural sciences, but this is not

possible in social and political sciences where the environment is complex, contextual, and

unpredictable.

Furthermore, the article by Bright and Gledhill examines the coherency of the peace and

conflict studies community. This resonates with the study from the aspect of analysing the

dynamics within the same field of research. Peace and conflict studies emerged after World

War two and was driven by the conviction to never succumb to such destruction. The field itself

has not been coherent since, the merge or war and peace studies do mirror sometimes and

overlap. The bridge between the ‘violent’ and ‘pacific’ approach of the field is not always

compatible. The approaches of the scholars are subjected to either one of the tracks the article

concludes.

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This is once again interesting for this study since the scholars and their works used for this

essay derive from the same field and with the logic stated above should therefore mirror a

similar approach to their narrative, perception, and world view. These normative considerations

impact the forms of research. Bright and Gledhill noticed in their research that there is a skewed

bias towards ‘violence’. This means that studies on war and conflict gain more traction than the

‘peace’ related research.

‘To what extent is data biased by the people who code them’

Jeff D. Colgan, 2019, writes about the American bias in security studies. He maps out how bias

and perception of Americanism in wars have affected even the perception on calculable

outcomes such as defeat or win, here the Vietnam war was used as an example. The study

outlines how American perception affects scholar analysis of states that has ‘historically’ been

enemies of the home state of the coder. Here is Iran and North Korea brought up as an example.

D’aoust 2011, questions why the field of international relations have not adapted and developed

the practices and methodologies to be more diverse and to include more perspectives than the

dominant ones. Why certain fields of thought continue to be seen as alternative or as outsider

from the ones seen as a main.

Bruce Kuklick, 2019, discusses the Michael C. Desh take on how the social sciences influence

and impact societal development. The waning impact of security studies on national security.

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He argues it is harder to pin down theories and effects of social sciences than those of natural

sciences that stays for many generations. Furthermore, he discusses the role of security studies

in policy making and how the need differs from one administration to the other. The main

argument is that urge or drive to make theories so specialized hinders the bridge to policy

making, a lack of overview and general knowledge.

An educated guess from this study that reflects on the idea that security studies experts are

influencing policy making less today than before is one that they are in demand during heated

times of conflict or crisis and less during peaceful times. If this applies to the scholars that wrote

about the Bosnian war could only be speculated since the surrounding political dynamics in the

late 90s were very different from those of today.

Hendrix and Vreede, 2019, conducted a study on how much the US dominates the publications

in three most popular international relations journals. The results were clear that the US is

mentioned by far the most of all states, the English language dominates the field as well,

Hendrix and Vreede explains these results are natural due to the US status in the world post

WW2 and cold war. Moreover, the US has been one of the most active in states in conflict from

the early 2000s. The look into the states in close alliance and how they get a somewhat

disproportionate space of publications by the parameters of economy and population, this article

tries to explain that notion of American dominance is natural or at least calculable legitimate.

Hoaglund et. al, 2020, displays how the field of international security is still male dominated

and the differences between ‘conflict’ related studies versus ‘peace’ related studies, where the

previous is male dominated and the latter by females. There is also a showing difference

between methodologies between genders. The female voices on research of Bosnian war will

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be one of the alternative works analyzed throughout this study. The article on the gendered

difference of studies within the fields draws on the fabled story of blind men approaching an

elephant and being sure of the part that they are touching without any of them seeing the whole

picture. This is used as a metaphor to show how split the field of security studies is and the

frustration from the lack of diverse thought and approaches without being labeled as

‘alternative’.

Method

This essay will be done with a qualitative textual analysis. The material analyzed will be studied

through a modified narrative and discourse analysis. Searching for semiotic markers on

presented narratives of Bosnian war, looking into culture, perception, language and theories. I

want to contrast ‘popular’ narratives to some of the alternative ones. What gap is filled? How

are they contradicting the stories? The analysis is deductive. When approaching the material,

I started with an interest in the conflict itself from an empirical perspective. I soon realized my

interest was not to say something about the conflict from an empirical perspective, but I noticed

patterns in the academical production and publications on the Bosnian war. The Bosnian war

simply acts a scenery for what I have realized to be a more general issue of international

relations and security studies. I chose books on the conflict that I have encountered throughout

my bachelor’s programme. Additionally, books and articles that topped the relevance when

searching for works on the Bosnian war in research databases. The theories used to analyze the

material, poststructuralism and constructivism gave me enough abstract space to approach this

phenomenon. More specifically I investigate knowledge production from the two theories. I

could have chosen other theories from the critical field of thought, such as feminism and post-

colonialism. There are arguments from these schools of thought that are applicable to the

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material and the case this study uses. Although, I wanted to provide a more general approach

and discussions to this study. A feminist and post-colonial perspective is still relevant but only

to one part of the knowledge production. Since I chose to investigate knowledge production

and language it became natural to use a critical narrative analysis and discourse analysis, not

strictly used accordingly to standard narrative and discourse analysis but modified for the aim

of this study.

Critical narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis

The classical narrative analysis is most common to reflect on interview material and individuals

and the respondents. For this essay the critical narrative analysis will take a specified and

modified form for the purpose of the study. The classical narrative analysis examines semiotic

markers in the stories and answers. Semiotic markers can be words that have strong

connotations, describing words of feelings or experiences. Semiotic markers can be perception

that leads to a certain bias of telling the story.

The critical narrative analysis and the critical discourse analysis combined or merged can be

used for metanalysis. Hence, to explain how individual narratives interconnects with societal

and/or institutional discourses and how these constitute each other (Souto-Manning, 2014).

This combination is what this study aims to be applying as method to the analysis to be both

examine the aspects of individuals and the contexts the individuals take part of, and in this case,

scholars, and a specific field of research on a specific empirical case.

In this study the material will be analyzed while searching for markers of two sections one that

is focused on the work, the text and the other on the researcher and their ‘milieu’.

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Model for analysis

Throughout the material the following aspects are to guide in the analysis. They are divided in

two sections. One is related to the work (the book or article) and how the language is used. The

other is more directed towards the milieu the work was produced in, the author, the field and

the methods chosen.

Semotic markers and subjects of analysis:

Language related markers to the works: Scholar’s background related:

Ethnicity Method

Religion Background

Balkan Field of thought

Identity Theories

Victims /Perpretators /Agressors

Material

The material used will be academic literature, such as articles and books. The selected material

are books and articles that comes up as the most relevant on the research databases for the case

of the Bosnian war and with the most citation concerning the conflict.

David Campbell- National Deconstruction 1999, appeals to poststructuralist thought in the

title of the book on how meaning is constructed and can be deconstructed. Campbell refers to

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the deconstruction of a nation here. The book was selected by a Bosnian forum as the best book

dealing with Bosnian conflict. According to Google Scholar the work has been cited 1291.

Mary Kaldor- Old and New Wars

Mary Kaldor is a prominent scholar in the field of global governance and on globalization. She

introduced the term ‘new wars’ to explain the wars after the cold war. According to Kaldor

these new wars had other forms than before. According to Google Scholar the work has been

cited by 8513.

Lene Hansen- Security as Practice 2013

Lene Hansen is an international relations scholar and teaches at the University of Copenhagen

and has criticized the absence of gender within the Copenhagen School of Security Studies. In

this book Security as Practice Hansen like Campbell uses post structuralist thought to explain

the discourses of ‘the Balkans’ and of the Bosnian war and how these affected the perception

of the conflict and was reproduced by the western discourse. According to Google Scholar the

work has been cited by 2687.

Olivera Simic- Challenging Bosnian Women’s Identity as Rape Victims, as Unending

Victims: The ‘other’ sex in Times of War 2012

Olivera Simic is an associate Professor at the Griffith Law School, Grifftith Univeristy in

Australia. Her works are associated with wartime sexual violence and peacekeeping operations.

Simic is a feminist scholar in the field of conflict studies. According to Google Scholar the

article has been cited by 22.

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Jessica M. Smith- Snaga Zene: Disrupting the discourses of victimhood in Bosnia-

Herzegovina 2016

Smith describes her methodology as action-research, where narrative and ethnographic

methods are used. These are to examine the female experiences in a post-conflict society. The

work has been cited by 2 according to Jstor.

Theoretical framework

Poststructuralism

Poststructuralism is difficult to state to a certain time and several other concepts are often linked

such as postmodernism or postmodernity. But poststructuralism usually means the social and

political narrative of the world and how we cannot limit it. The story and narrative will always

be limited to a certain representation and subjectivity. Therefore, language and meaning-

making are given special focus (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2020 P: 408). Poststructuralism

does not necessarily have to refer to an "after" as a particular epoch (post) nor does it have to

contrast structuralism. If we look at structural linguists who say that language can be divided

into the significant and the one that gives significance. That is, there is something common

basalt that in contrast to other names of objects and subjects makes sense (Ibid, P: 411). Derrida

further developed these thoughts, however, Derrida meant that meaning is not as stable or static

but rather more often than rarely ambiguous. Furthermore, Derrida argued that language is

fluent and alive in the sense that it is in constant motion. Unlike Saussure, which emphasized

the spatial differences in significance or meaning in language, Derrida believes that the

important difference is in time, i.e. the temporary in language. The most distinctive or 'radical'

thing is the idea that meaning always differs. Derrida believes that the Western idea of

inevitable uncertainty comes from the idea of binary opposites, such as man / woman, cause /

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effect, presence / absence. When creating these, they also come with the idea of hierarchical

differences where one is above the other (ibid, P: 414). When we get away from the idea of

ontology and what it is to what it is not there, Derrida's deconstructive thinking comes into play.

This means that one has taken the approach that meaning is unfixed.

Foucault studied 'truth' and how discourses were formed in different historical periods,

especially norm-breaking behaviors and what constituted the norm. According to Foucault,

truth does exist, but it will always depend on social, economic, and historical contexts (ibid, P:

417). Foucault wanted to shift the focus from analyzing the monarch's influence on a society to

looking at the mechanisms, tactics and strategies that enable or limit certain behaviors (ibid, P:

419). Poststructuralism was clearly expressed in the late 1980s, when until then the field had

mostly been dominated by realists and neorealists.

The critical thinkers of the time questioned the hierarchy / anarchy discourse led by realists

(ibid, P: 426). Later thinkers such as David Campbell, who used Derrida's earlier thoughts on

language and meaning making, focused on identity in security studies. In addition, the idea of

outside and inside groups for identity is like the idea that meaning making takes place in contrast

to something else (ibid, P: 427). Inside and out can also be applied to the idea of security, that

inside is security and outside is insecurity / uncertainty which is described as lawlessness and

chaos. Which could be seen as a natural pursuit of order, democracy, and progressiveness. With

this logic, identities of states are never given and change in relation to other states and are

reproduced in relation to other states (ibid P: 433). Furthermore, it can be said that states are

never finished or perfected but must therefore be an infinite process. Campbell also notes that

danger is not something that exists in a vacuum and thus it can only be handled relationally and

through understanding. States have a rating of danger that can rarely be understood rationally.

It is the state's relationship and identity to the alleged danger that will determine management

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and priorities. The relationship between internal and external threats can also be linked to

identity.

Constructivism

The basic ideas of social constructivism are that human reality is constructed through

socialization. We understand the world through the norms, languages and social conventions

presented to us. This social imprint affects our understanding of the world. This with a special

focus on language. Man's identity is formed in the interaction with the world around him

(Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2020 P: 95). Constructivists do not disregard the fact that

biological needs and drives affect human circumstances, but they will always be interpreted

through social norms and conventions (ibid, P: 97). Constructivists interpret security and

insecurity as something shaped by social relations and contexts. Furthermore, it can be said that

understanding rationality or irrationality arises. States' interests are constructed through

socialization. In sociology, certain institutions are mentioned as social agents in society that

educate and direct man in the expected social conventions. This can be done formally, such as

the enactment of laws that restrict people to certain freedoms. But it also happens informally

daily when we meet our different contexts and our identities are shaped and edited through each

interaction (ibid, P: 100). The peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union was something that

mainstream realists and neo-realists could not predict. There they expected full-scale war or

even nuclear war. Constructivism has had several ramifications and self-declared phenomena

such as Wendt's 'security dilemma' through the lens of constructivism (ibid, P: 103). Wendt

believes that the reason behind the security dilemma lies in the intersubjective of socialization

in this case trust. Not all states that upgrade are not a threat based on the exchange between the

states. The example brought up is that interpretation as crucial. The United States does not

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perceive Great Britain as a threat if it has nuclear weapons, but a state that is far from those

who acquire nuclear weapons is perceived as a greater threat (ibid, P: 107). Wendt believes in

the realistic idea of world order in anarchy that "anarchy becomes what states make it". Bilateral

and multilateral relations are alive and changing over time. States that have been closely linked

have developed common values and interests over time, but this can also change drastically

because change and action are owned by the people who govern (ibid, P: 108). If the values are

not reproduced over time, new interests may emerge. That is when we can see so-called shifts

in history. Constructivism does not see states as rational actors because states are driven by

people and man is not rational. There is also no formula that can calculate the irrationality of

man when it can arise or how often it can arise. This means that we constantly together create

meaning and truths that we live by as a society. Europe is another example where states fought

for centuries to be allies today. Wendt is criticized for starting from and reproducing realistic

assumptions and for not fully providing an alternative to traditional ideas of security studies

(ibid, P: 115).

Critical constructivism intends to break down and break out the hierarchies of power in and

between social contexts. It also problematizes its own assumptions and tries to act self-

reflexively. Furthermore, they want to examine the construction of uncertainty and threats.

Weldes et al. describes how the construction of security and uncertainty should not be seen as

naturally given but as a product of cultural and social constructions. This also takes the focus

away from states such as the referent object, instead a discussion is opened about other referent

objects that may pose security threats (ibid, P: 120). The main argument from critical

constructivists is that nothing exists as given or natural, people and context make sense. At the

same time, one does not oppose the idea of a material reality such as the mere existence of

nuclear weapons can constitute a threat to security (ibid, P: 123). But the meaning is

linguistically constituted.

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Knowledge production

Knowledge production or constitution of meaning is what the theories used for this study will

be filtered through when searching for markers and when coding the material. Constructivism

agrees to that knowledge and truths are contextual and such is for the purpose of this study as

well. Other markers could have been used. The general theme is general for the cause of what

this study aims to analyze, ‘the coders’ (the scholars) and the coding (the narratives) while

being reflexive about the essay’s own coding, how the markers are chosen and the material.

The knowledge production is relevant to analyze because the main purpose of published

research is to share knowledge and it is crucial to be critical of how the knowledge is produced

and the environment it is developed through. Especially research should broaden knowledge

and create greater understanding. Somehow, no matter the amount of accessible knowledge

people and ‘states’ do not share the same truth of reality. This is usually said about when USA

and Russia meet. The realities and perceptions are so far from each that the common

understanding is almost impossible. In this study the Bosnian war is used as an example of this

phenomenon. As of year 2021, the political tensions of Bosnia arose when a law passed on

making it illegal to speak in denial of Srebrenica genocide. This made the Bosnian Serbs to pull

out from common authorities and institutions, most concerning the military. At the core the

perceptions and split realities is causing these tensions.

Analysis

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David Campbell- National Deconstruction

Campbell uses poststructuralist thought in his approach to the Bosnian war. In the first chapter

of the book ethics, politics, and responsibility: The Bosnian Challenge he addresses many of

the complex issues that faced the international community and the people of Yugoslavia. He

describes some personal encounters where Campbell tries to widen and deconstruct the concept

of categorizing the conflict as ‘ethnic’. He gives anecdotal examples of people who never

reflected over their ethnicity or religion until the war. The extremist nationalists of the ethnic

groups were named with WW2 connotations. This was to differentiate people who did not agree

with the nationalist or partition agenda, as ‘regular’ Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. Another

interesting aspect brought up by Campbell is how states are constituted. The international

community had to find ways to deal with not the destruction but the deconstruction of Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia. As Yugoslavia’s republics became sovereign Yugoslavia territory

changed but not to a different which created confusion is Yugoslavia was shrinking and with

no succeeder state. With post structuralist view Yugoslavia never existed and never stopped

existing (Campbell, 1999 P:18). This is explained through constituted identity if the people do

not reconstitute the identity of being Yugoslavian, Yugoslavia stops existing and same goes for

vice versa, the people of the region could in theory bring back Yugoslavia. Identities are not

fixed and can therefore develop into anything. The many draws on WW2 were a way to

constitute new- “old”- identities. Wording and language play a crucial role when setting

narratives. Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, and ‘othering’ through historical events like Jasenovac.

A concentration camp from WW2 where Serbs, Jews and Roma people were massacred by

Ustase. An event reused by Serbian nationalist to perform othering of Croats and meanwhile

Tudjman tried mitigating the numbers of Jasenovac and later to rebury the body of Croat leader

Pavelic among national heroes (ibid P: 9). An interesting reflection Campbell does on the

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

approaches of mediators, the EU and the US was the focus on partition and to suffice the

nationalist drives for new states. The ones who identified as non-nationalist Bosnians were not

taken into consideration when the map of the new states was drawn.

Violence and the Political

If solely looked to discoursal thought of how identity is constructed it then takes away the

human experience and human agency of constituted narratives. The processes of giving

meaning to the physical world is both a collective and individual experience. With the same

reasoning this essay uses both discoursal analysis tools and narrative tools to pinpoint the

coding.

Clash of narratives

An academical forum was held in Tuzla where a north American professor of social science

stated on a question about refugees ‘the post-ethnic conflict situation’. This response angered a

Bosnian professor who did not agree that war in Bosnia was because of ethnicities. He argued

for the war to be fascist aggression (ibid, P: 34). This is one example of differentiated realities.

The Bosnian war is one of many examples throughout history and present day where the ‘truth’

is disputed. If there is one truth or reality, then that one is unavailable for humans, without

making this a religious argument. People construct their realities through narratives. The

narratives that are ‘given’ by institutional and cultural discourse and the ones we give to

ourselves. Simply put, the stories we tell about and of ourselves.

Ontopology

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

One of the main arguments presented by Campbell is on Ontopology. Derrida defines

Ontopology the ‘at-home’ presuppose. ‘Ontopology’ is a neologism linking indissociably the

ontological value of present being to its situation, to the stable and presentable determination

of a locality, the topos of territory, native soil, city, body in general (Derrida, 1994). From my

own understanding I would describe it as constituted primordialism, to give intrinsic meaning

to certain circumstances of the physical world.

Hayden White is brought up in the same chapter with the argument of how history is constructed

regardless of approach. It is narrated even when chronological (Campbell, 1999 P: 37). The

critic against this way is the danger of historical revisionism as denial of the Holocaust. White

responds to this that denial differs from interpretation. Taking Srebrenica as an example of

historical narratives where Bosniaks defines it as ‘genocide’ or ‘ethnic cleansing’ while Serbs

defines it as a ‘battle’. No one defines as a place where people ‘were killed’ (ibid, P: 40).

Micronarratives and macronarratives, where the macro refer to a more discoursal development.

Nonetheless, there is never a narrative-less, narrative-free, and interpreter-less zone or event of

history.

Campbell criticizes the international response, the american academy and diplomats to be stuck

in the ontopological views. Intervention was hard to be legitimized because the state had no

‘status quo’ as Yugoslavia was being deconstructed. The conflict was note inter-state but intra-

state. Instead, the solution that the international community agreed to was to split up

nationalities and see the troubles of ‘ethnicity’. The Dayton accords are based upon ethnic

division to keep the peace and when war refugees wanted to come back, they were not

encouraged to go back to their home but to live within a territory with their ethnic majority.

This stems from the thought of a strong inside outside and diminishes the experience of the

24
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

Bosnian people to be living ‘pluralistically’ for many generations. Then again, Yugoslavia who

was ‘the community’ was falling apart. If the dichotomy of inside-outside was not enforced

there could been an opening for solutions in between these poles Campbell argues. He suggests

that intervention should encapsulate non-military and non-state actors to come away from the

territorial obsession. Campbell wrote this in 1999, today there is few who would argue for

intervention of any kind when viewing the interventions in hindsight from the 90s to present

day.

If we have the traditional view of states that safety and home is within and insecurity, anarchy

is outside. The balance of ethics or hospitality is lost and should and could act as a bridge

between these two world views of non-ontopological and ontopological world view. Especially

when the ‘othering’ was hard to define, and outside actors placed it in ethnicity. The inside and

outside becomes complex.

In the chapter ontopology Campbell makes an overview and comparison of scholars’ narratives

on the Bosnian war. For that reason, I could have listed Campbell as previous research too but

since this work has its own narrative as well and approach it stays in this essay as mainly

material for analysis.

Campbell is an Australian professor who has taught in Australia, USA, and Britain. He has

worked with visual narratives, such as, photographing in contemporary media. He is a political

scientist in the field of international relations with most works through post structuralist

thought.

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

From my own interpretation of the book, Campbell holds a very broad and open perspective

when dealing with the Bosnian war. When the events are listed to explain the culmination of

the conflict. He handles it impressively discussing how different scholars take out and pinpoint

some events as more crucial than others and what effect that has on the narrative presented.

He challenges and criticizes western thought in international relations without elaborating on

how he views himself in that context as a western thinker. Post structuralist thought is mainly

considered as critical or non-traditional.

Lene Hansen- Security as Practice

Hansen presents a work on how to practically apply discourse analysis. The book covers the

methodological aspect of discourse and in the second part the case of the Bosnian war. Hansen

starts of as displaying the discourses especially ‘the western one’ on how the Balkan(s) have

been viewed throughout modern history. How discourses interplay and collide with each other.

She divides the concept into ethical, temporal, and spatial (Hansen, 2006). Hansen depicts how

the discourses on the ‘Balkans as a young civilization in need of western support’ where people

of Balkan are seen as uncivilized and violent. Especially from WW1 seen as the people who

tried escaping colonial rule and become these ‘young nation builders’. However, as the conflict

and its atrocities reached western media a new discourse was to be created where ‘Balkan’ was

put up against ‘Bosnian’, by separating the ‘Bosnian victim’ from the ‘Serbian aggressor’. For

the concept and identity of ‘the Balkans’ Hansen draws out three different discoursal identities

on ‘the Balkans’. In the mind 1800s the Balkans were referred to being in stretch between

‘Europe’ and the ‘orient’ because of the ottoman rule over many of today’s western Balkan

26
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

states. The region was being called the ‘turkey in Europe’ (ibid, P: 354). This split identity of

not being a part Europe can still be identified in the region. The Christian orthodox identity

held the Balkans as gate keepers from the Turks and Islamism (ibid P: 360). Romanticism and

exoticism arose when the Balkan people fighting the oppression of the Turks to people of

passion and independence. Passion became one of the main elements of constructing the Balkan

identity. Hansen refers here to Stojanovic 1967, citing ‘the Balkan people is characterized by

impulsiveness and especially the ease which they can pass from one emotion to its opposite

even in our own time. Joy gives way to tears and lamentations, the tearing of hair, and the

beating of breasts, and tears and lamentations yield to rejoicing’ (ibid, P: 362).

The romantic or exotifying of the ‘other’ to be a little wild and passionate is not a unique

perception from western point of view. While the liberation for the Balkans in the first wars

was supported and romanticized. Later, during WW1 the radicalization of the difference

between ‘the Balkans’ and ‘the west’ appeared. Where ‘the Balkans’ became constituted as an

alien dangerous Other, where 'the West’ had no ethical responsibility for the developments

(ibid, P: 375). Post- Ww1, the most frequent usage was through the term ‘balkanization’. This

referred to ‘the creation, in a region of hopelessly mixed races, of a medley of small states with

backward populations, economically and financially weak, covetous, intriguing, afraid, a

continual prey to machinations of the great powers, and to the violent promptings of their own

passion’ (quoted from Todorova 1997, found in Hansen P: 376). This negative turn of passion

to be uncontrollable and weak from strong and heroic. It combines inner instability and the

potential of wider European wars. The discursive terrain of the time also established that were

no traits of similarities between the west and ‘the Balkans’ even though that is a bit

oversimplified because there many important agreements and bilateral exchanges even then.

The third discourse that arose during the 1990s is like the one of ‘balkanization’ that the root

27
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

cause of the wars of former Yugoslavia was inherently due to the ‘violent, instable, barbaric,

intra-Balkan hatred’ in the region. Another temporal constitution of identity when the wars

started in former Yugoslavia was the term ‘ancient’. Warren Zimmerman, the last US

Ambassador to Yugoslavia said in 1996 the wars were ‘‘a throwback to ancient bandit traditions

of the Balkans’’, an article in The Guardian wrote ‘’ancient flames of negative passion and

hatred’ and Michael Dobbs in 1995 wrote in the Washington post ‘’fratricidal war based on

ancient nationalist hatreds’’. President H. Bush said that it was ‘’a complex, convoluted conflict

that grows out of age-old animosities. The blood of innocents is being spilled over century-old

feuds’’ (Bush, 1992). Republican senator John McCain stated it as ‘a conflict which has been

going on in the Balkans for hundreds of years’ (McCain, 1992). All of these try to link the

happenings to a historical cause and that the people of ‘the Balkans’ are acting primordial. Some

were drawing on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand 1914 in Sarajevo to be the same root

cause as of 1992 in Sarajevo.

The construction of ‘the Balkans’ as a place impossible to change also legitimatized western

inaction until the discourse changed into ‘Genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ that opened up for

intervention. The homogenized discourse that put all the ethnicities under the same umbrella of

‘the Balkans’. Even though the Serbs and the Bosnians were dominant in forces and caused the

most atrocities no one of the parties were blameless of the conflict. The first general posted in

Bosnia that led the UN forces said after his removal that ‘’Dealing with Bosnia is a bit like

dealing with three serial killers – one has killed fifteen, one has killed ten, one has killed five.

Do we help the one who has only killed five?’’ (Bennet, 1995).

The discourse of Genocide the one that made intervention possible and sent a strong political

message and ethical responsibility of the international community. The Genocide convention

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

does though not provide any measures for how big part of group is considered genocide or mass

atrocities. This is one of many reasons why it is contested and a space of political debate. Hence,

until this day Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs do not define Srebrenica the same and that is the

reason of the recent political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The discourse developed from

all the parties being responsible to ‘Bosnians’ being ‘victims. Bosnia was lifted out of the

Balkan discourse and Sarajevo was displayed as a tolerant multicultural city as one of the

western world (Hansen, 1996 P: 404). The identity of the west, the EU and the US was based

upon high ethical grounds where the initial inaction hurt the identity. The subject of Bosnian

Serbs was not entirely as victims but rather as a manipulated population by nationalist and

genocidal leaders. Where there was potential of educating and lifting to progress. That discourse

had similarities to ‘the Balkans as potential civilization’ but still being backward and

uneducated (ibid, P: 408).

Hansen continues with a timeline of events, very similar to the one presented by Campbell. She

starts off with mentioning some key factors to the Yugoslavian wars and its partition. Milosevic

and his power base of promoting Serbian nationalism, the financial difficulties of Yugoslavia,

and the power dynamics of bipolarity of the world. The first one to leave Yugoslavia was

Slovenia where the war only lasted 10 days and had 20 atrocities. The Yugoslav army later

focused on Croatia where 1/3 of the population was ethnically Serbian. Europe and the USA

was occupied with the Cold war, Gulf war and the break-up of the Soviet Union (ibid, P: 418).

Soon after Macedonia and Bosnia declared independence. Bosnia was recognized by the EC

and the USA on April 6, 1992, and the heated conflict started two days later when Yugoslav

Army (JNA) shelled the Bosnian town Zvornik. The conflict escalated over the period of

months. In the beginning of summer over 1.1 million people have been displaced and at the end

of the year almost two million (ibid, P: 421).

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

One of all those was my grandmother; she was placed in a refugee camp in Kosovo. She moved

around until it was safe to return to her hometown.

On September 14th the UN Security Resolution 776 passed for the deployment of peacekeeper,

with the amount of 40 000 men and women at the of 1994. One of the biggest UN peacekeeping

missions of all time. The first attempt to peace deal was the Vance-Owen plan that the Bosnian

Serbs did not accept. UN passed another resolution to declare safe areas and the first one was

Srebrenica. Clinton kept advocating for air strikes without sending any ground troops this was

not in line with the more humanitarian European approach. However, the escalation of the

conflict took place, now including the UN and NATO, with airstrikes against military

infrastructure but the Bosnian Serb forces answered every attack, and the NATO eventually

stopped the strikes while witnessing the escalation instead of de-escalation (ibid, P: 436). When

Srebrenica fell as a safe area. The Bosnian Serbs deported 5000 women, children and the eldery

and executed 7000 bosnian men and boys. The Croatian government forces launched Operation

Storm (Oluja) that drove Croatian Serbs from the Kraijna region where generations of ethnic

had been living. A move that surprised many western observers. Short after Richard Holbrooke

was appointed head of US negotiating team and Carl Bildt the European negotiating team. They

managed to create the Dayton accord that settled that Bosniaks and Croats got 51% of the

territory and 49% to the Republika Srpska and the Bosnian Serbs (ibid, P: 440).

Victims

The humanitarian discourse and the perception on ‘victims’ of the war was constructed or

pressured through media on western leaders. This is interestingly not separated from the

‘balkan’ discourse but rather modified to still hold the nationalist leaders accountable for the

30
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

misery and not through historical western (in)action. The main victims as in most wars are

civilians (ibid, P: 460). What made that tricky to define during the Bosnian was that the Bosnian

war was to the most a guerilla-war where civilians armed up from all ethnicities. These weapons

are still in the homes of civilians in today’s Bosnia and Serbia (Dulic & Kostic, 2010)

Hansen also notes western influence in discoursal identity. Hansen mentions the book Black

Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West 1941 as a classical, however the book has been

categorized as given the Serbian point of view. It is even argued that the book influenced the

generations after to make the British and american policy makers subconsciously more hesitant

to attack the Serbs due to Serbian effort during the WW2 (Hansen, 2006 P: 564).

Mary Kaldor- New and Old Wars

Kaldor presents her idea of defining wars as old and new. Meaning old as traditional with the

state actors involved and their military powers. New wars referring to wars in a globalized era

of non-state actors involved such as NGOs, IOs, regional organizations, private security

contractors, paramilitaries, and warlords etc, (Kaldor, 2013). This is what Kaldor identifies as

the forms of war in post- Cold war era. The Bosnian war is used as a case study in the book to

be used as an example of a ‘New War’. Kaldor begins her chapter on the Bosnian War to explain

how the ‘Bosnian war impinged on global consciousness’. A statement provoking to the fact

that something that concerned the western world, and the Balkans is automatically considered

global, could be interpreted as post-colonial or at least Eurocentric do give that kind of

importance to a European war. If we interpret it as global since international organization as

the United Nations were involved in the conflict. The war mobilized an international effort, and

31
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

engaged major governments (Kaldor, 2012 P:32). Moreover, it effected European Security

Policy the role of NATO and how peacekeeping is conceived Kaldor argues. Kaldor echoes the

response of the international community to be confused and miscalculated due to

misconceptions and old perceptions of Yugoslavia similar to Hansen’s argument on discoursal

changes during the war. She lays out how both the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats wanted

to unify ‘their lands’ to respective republic, Serbia and Croatia and how both indulged in ethnic

cleansing. The identity and ethnicity as key factors rooted in ‘ancient hatred’, ‘balkanization’,

the Austrian Hungarian empire and ottoman empire constructed different identities between the

ethnicities. The national leaders Karadzic, Tudjman, Izetbegovic all agreed in different

definitions of their people’s differences. One of the main differences was religion, Serbs being

Christian orthodox, bosniaks Muslim and Croats catholic (ibid, P:35). These ideas of

primordialism, hence why nationalism come and go and when it gets heated ‘the true colors

show’. This is somewhat racist, and it is probably better explained through sociological

processes of society why nationalism has waves throughout history. Economic insecurity is

mentioned here too as something that enabled nationalism to consolidate. The Tito Regime had

centralized control over all aspects of social life. It had more liberty and liberalism in

comparison to the eastern countries under soviet regime. Yugoslavia allowed some economic

pluralism and Yugoslavian citizens were allowed to travel. There was freedom of cultural

expression and to some extent for intellectuals. The fall of the Berlin War and drive for

democracy in the eastern countries and that made Yugoslavia again pressed between West and

East. The Yugoslav partisans fought with the slogan ‘Brotherhood and Unity’. The

establishment of socialist Yugoslavia created six republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia,

Macedonia, Croatia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina) each with an ethnical majority and with two

autonomous regions in Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo, both with mixed populations (ibid, P:

37). In the 1970s Yugoslavia started taking commercial loans as western aid was decreasing.

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

Many Yugoslavs left to work abroad in countries such as Sweden during that period. My

paternal grandparents were one of them that arrived at Sweden in the late 60s. During the 80s

Yugoslavia hit hyperinflation and the rise of organized crime. When the last prime minister of

Yugoslavia tried controlling the economy it only caused dissatisfaction amongst the republics.

Slovenes and Croats started arming up their independent forces. These ended up being used in

the wars to come as paramilitary forces even though they were claimed to be legal forces.

Milosevic used the national broadcast and held speeches with references to the battle of Kosovo

1389 one of the Serbian attempts to independence from the ottoman empire. …” We Serbs are

saving Europe even if Europe does not appreciate our efforts”. Tudjman on the other hand

worked with transnational lobbyism stretching out to the Croatian diaspora in North America

where most former Ustase, Croatian fascist from WW2 (ibid, P: 42).

Yugoslavism was particularly strong in Bosnia-Herzegovina and there were many mixed

marriages in the cities. The republic that was the most pluralistic and tolerant became the

bloodiest and most heated. This identity crisis still haunts the people that live in BaH today.

The Bosnian could primarily be understood through Serbian and Croatian national aggression.

The Bosnian Muslim nationalism (more correctly termed as religious extremism) was different

and more split. There was a strong peace movement in Bosnia during the war, supported by the

trade unions and Bosnian media. In September in Sarajevo a human chain linked the orthodox

Church, the mosque, and the synagogue. Sarajevo is unique in Europe to have these three places

of different religions within the same neighborhood. Hence, why Sarajevo is sometimes called

the Jerusalem of Europe referring to this pluralism of religion and to its heated history (ibid, P:

45).

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

As mentioned before the Bosnian war was impacted by paramilitary forces besides from the

regular forces. This is one Kaldor’s main argument for listing the Bosnian war as a ‘New War’.

The usage of media and the response and influence of outside actors. Something that connects

these influential works dealing with the Bosnian War is to criticize the ‘international

community’ and its response and reaction to the war. Noting that the <<international>> comes

from the main influential states which is western states and in the case of the Bosnian War it

was USA and Western Europe. If we are to examine the influence of international and regional

organizations, such as the UN and EU, the realist argument that the organization only becomes

as influential (or dominant) as the state leading the organization is logical. This study is to show

how the field of peace and conflict studies have an American domination simply through

creating the ‘relevance’ for the research. Simply put, it will resonate within in the field if it

contains American policy or American actors. Harshly put, would the academical field ‘care’

to research the Bosnian war if the international community did not get involved in the conflict.

The paramilitary groups were mainly organized crime, like Arkan’s tigers and Seselj’s ‘White

eagles’. These were young men with international criminal ‘careers’ and many coming from

the football hooligan scene. Another argument for classifying the Bosnian war as ‘new war’

was that territorial hold was reprioritized to have control over civilian population and some

cities were able to be cut off. This is something that Kaldor refers to being different from

traditional wars of the past. The Bosnian war scene was compared to a leopard pattern, scattered

across the region, cities, and villages. There was no dominant front (ibid, P: 53).

Kaldor criticizes the international community on missing out on the perception of ‘new’ ethnic

nationalism and civilized values (ibid, P: 60).

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

That this would be the main explanation of the conflict, while knowing the history of the region,

is a hard one to swallow and feels a bit exotifying once again of the ‘other’. Even if the forms

of war have changed since the WW2 the socializing processes and constructions and

constitutions of identity has not. That the war was ‘messy’ as all wars tend to be, is true for the

decentralized nature of the conflict with many state and non-state actors.

Kaldor notes that the response of the international community and the mediators’ solutions that

led to the Dayton Accords, was based upon the wills of the nationalist leaders instead of using

the capacities of NGOs and the non-nationalist population to reach a political solution instead

of ‘traditionally’ territorial. This made the war leaders ‘win’ the war according to Kaldor.

Olivera Simic- Challenging Bosnian Women’s Identity as Rape Victims, as

Unending Victims: The ‘other’ sex in Times of War 2012

Simic challenges the discourse of Bosnian women as solely rape victims. The article wants to

highlight a more nuanced identity of Bosnian women and consensual sex during times of war.

Relationships between different ethnicities. Simic declares how her research started with

looking into UN Peacekeepers during the Bosnian war and their involvement of trafficking and

rape. She later redirected into a different phenomenon, consensual relationship between

Bosnian women and UN peacekeepers during the war and after it. The zero-tolerance policy

(ZTP) that was on sexual violence and abuse and how it also strongly discouraged any sexual

relationships. Simic wants to link consent to female agency of the Bosnian women and the

complexity of a society that finds a new everyday life even though it was shadowed by the

chaos of war. The ZTP makes many assumptions of ‘victimhood’ and ‘vulnerability’ of women.

35
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

Simic presented her field work to a feminist conference and was surprised by how the field was

disappointed with her results to not reinforce the image of female victimhood in times of war

(Simic, 2012). When Simic presented how her interviewees had viewed sex with peacekeepers

as something ‘for fun’ or ‘for love’. This did not resonate with the audience. Simic wanted to

be able to provide agency to women. It does not understate the systemic weapon of rape during

the war. Where around 20 000 Bosnian women experienced rape in what was known as ‘rape

camps’. Rape used as weapon in war for humiliation and demoralization of the enemy is not a

new phenomenon. The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

recognized sexual violence as crimes against humanity. This was considered a great progression

for the field of feminist security. The downside is that this narrowed and limited the narrative

of women in the war to solely being victims without agency. Important questions raised is the

role of women of these regions is considered less ‘emancipated’ and thus cannot act as western

women in their sexuality. This is based on eurocentrism, racism, orientalism, and ‘othering’

(ibid).

One could argue that bosnian women as a part of the people were still under discourse of

‘balkanization’ meaning that they were victims of their leaders and the men. They were

constructed as ‘less educated’ and thus the UN peacekeeper takes the role of the ‘white savior’

and ‘He’ should not take advantage of the ‘weaker sex’.

Simic questions why this subject made the other scholars so uncomfortable and how come that

when nuancing and providing wider narratives even in the academical field it is met with such

discontent.

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

Jessica M. Smith- Disrupting Discourses of Victimhood in Bosnia-

Herzegovina 2016

Smith begins her article by echoing similar thoughts of Kaldor of how the forms of war have

changed. The violence is not solely confined between state actors. This has led to focus more

on how war inflict on civilians. Especially the gendered experience of women, men, girls, and

boys. This can be seen on UN security resolution like 1325 and NGOs work towards these

groups in conflict. Smith confides that construction of narratives are interconnected to

discourses and are never neutral on the contrary are inherently political and will affect how

policy is formed. Furthermore, the response in a post conflict situation by organizations and

donors emphasized on the matter to meet needs of women and children. These needs will go

through the lens of the preexisting narrative. In the long term this has been damaging for the

women in Bosnia for not being accepted into the political sphere without the role of victims.

The victimization overrun legitimacy. Women were welcomed into ‘acceptable’ domains of

politics that did not disturb ‘real politics’. As long as women did not disrupt or question the

patriarchal power dynamic they were encouraged to engage in politics. Another limiting aspect

of narrative is that rarely sexual violence against Serbian women and Bosnian men has space

to be addressed (ibid). This once again limits the complexity of war and the experiences of

individuals to be silent by the dominant discourses. The binary positions that made ‘women-

victims’ and ‘men-perpetrators’. The positioning of certain groups has implications on

perceptions and what stories become privileged and leading the narrative and in the bigger

perspective the discourse. Agency and legitimacy are interlinked for how space of influence is

given and produced. Dominant narratives make it difficult for alternative or counter- stories to

appear and be heard. By taking individual stories into consideration so that they can widen the

37
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

narrative and with essential representation of groups who do not belong to the dominant

narrative (ibid).

Discussion

When approaching this study with my hypotheses that dominant narratives and discourses on

the Bosnian war would be influenced by one single ‘story’, one narrative. This narrative would

be influenced by limitations within the field of conflict studies with Americanism or western

thought dominating the discourse. Furthermore, that this would be influencing the scholars and

their works. To some extent that can be shown through the works of Campbell, Hansen and

Kaldor all of which give considerable space to analyzing the response of the ‘international

community’ which in turn was led by the USA and Western Europe. As shown by previous

research that articles and books within the field of peace and conflict studies is dominated by

works that covers or mentions the USA as an actor. This could cause a ‘milieu’ that applauds

similar works to be reproduced within the same discourse. When I searched for books and

articles written from other perspectives especially ‘local’ narratives what I found was that

Serbian works tend to be pro-Serbian, Bosnian pro-Bosnian, and Croat pro-Croat. This is the

reason why I left them out of the study since my main aim was not to give new reproduce

conflict narratives by themselves on the events of the Bosnian war. My aim was to show how

the works of scholars were reproducing discourses and how limiting discourses on knowledge

production affects our understanding. It was challenging to find works that directly criticizes

the ‘main discourses’ and those that I did find dealt with victimization of women and what the

effects were from these. These articles have a lower relevance when researching the Bosnian

war and they are apparently cited by fewer as I have listed under material. The very recent and

38
Viktorija Pesic Thesis

ongoing political crisis of Bosnia-Herzegovina of the Bosnian serb threats of withdrawal is a

direct effect of the unresolved perceptions and narratives of the conflict that still causes

instability. BiH had the worst outcome of the Yugoslav wars and thus have naturally the longest

recovery, but the state has stagnated with multilevel corruption and an extensive ‘brain drain’

where young, educated Bosnians are emigrating to build a better life for themselves outside of

Bosnia. Research and academia meet these puzzles of reality and yet there is no clear solution

or answer to understand Bosnia. I have spent many days trying to understand the conflict for

this study and I have spent even more days in the region with people who have experienced the

conflict firsthand and still the same question haunts everyone. Many reasonable causes are

brought up in this study. The historical discourses on ‘the balkans’, nationalism and the

construction of identities, ‘othering’. Kaldor and Campbell shares the perception of the

perception of the conflict. What Campbell defines as the non-ontopological meeting solutions

of ontopological thinking resonates with Kaldor in the sense that ‘new’ forms of war or at least

challenging forms were met with the cognitive framework of traditional thinking. This was and

is not a sufficient solution. Bosnia’s constitution that is based on the Dayton Accords is one of

the most complex political systems the world. A political system based in ‘balkanization’. From

a personal point of view there is a desperate need for democratic progression and non-

nationalist voices. These voices could be academical ones, however, then we have to see the

limitations that these voices can be encountering today when entering the field of conflict

studies.

Conclusion

To conclude this small-scale study on popular and influential workings dealing with the

Bosnian war and how alternative discourses take up lesser space and is being countered with

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hesitancy. The narratives and discourse need to be revised as new findings or tensions arise in

a conflict or post conflict situation.

Campbell presents a post structuralist approach to understanding the partition of Yugoslavia

and the Bosnian war. Campbell develops the thoughts of Derrida to describe the somewhat

primordial need of ‘at home’ which is described as ontopological. While a society that lives

pluralistically with universal values is referred to non-ontopological. Campbell critices how a

society that had many values of non-ontopological living was ‘served’ ontopological mediation

and solution. Hansen takes us through the main discourses of ‘balkan’ in a modern time. Hansen

displays how discourses collided and transformed into new ones. Furthermore, how Bosnian

victims were lifted out of the ‘the Balkan’ discourse and freed from ‘othering’ to some extent

and in other aspects still limited by the narrative of ‘the other’. Hansen and Campbell attempt

to understand the ‘international community’ and their response in the conflict and how they

constituted their own identity in the developments of the war depending on how the narrative

of the war was changing from ‘ethnic war’ to ‘genocide’. Kaldor presents a new term ‘new

wars’ where she uses the Bosnian war as an example of this phenomenon. Kaldor argues that

the new forms of war cannot be tackled with old/ traditional means, and hence why the shift of

new and old wars became hard for the international community to grasp. All these workings

from these ‘western’ scholars were used because of how popular and influential they were. The

reasoning behind their arguments is not limiting itself, rather it is that the reproduced discourses

dominate the field and alternative discourses have a hard time being welcomed or even found.

The alternative discourses used in this study deals with the narratives of ‘victimization’ of

Bosnian women in the war and how alternative stories is being treated in the field of conflict

studies. Bosnia-Herzegovina has an ongoing political crisis that stems from the perceptions of

war. To understand how these can still exist and infect a society in peace comes from widening

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the narratives and allowing alternative voices to take place. This way we give agency to

democratic progress not only when there are ‘western’ interests involved or to act when ‘it is

too late’.

Future research

If the current political crisis would lead to partition of a new republic from Bosnia or redrawn

maps again. This would spark the need of revisiting the conflict research and what parts were

understood correctly and what were not. The research on split narratives will also be of

relevance and widening the narrative of post conflict studies to better understand the current

perceptions and to not redo the same mistakes. Additionally, to stay critical of the environment

of the field and how ‘alternative’ thought is constructed, to not limit new or different

perspectives. The ‘influential’ workings on the Bosnian war can be further examined in the

‘americanized’ bias of the field.

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Viktorija Pesic Thesis

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