engleski

Politics of Visibility in Public Space: Ethnic Identity Construction and Contestation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Public space represents a crucial arena of the political. In the public space, political power can be projected, political mobilization can be achieved, and political identity can be expressed. Further, public space exemplifies the territorial aspect of politics, since politics, even in an era of digital electoral campaigning and cyber warfare, cannot escape the bounds of territory. Humans, as agents of politics, remain unquestionably territorial beings. The aim of this paper is to offer insight into practices of public space production, delimitation, and contestation in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Dayton Peace Agreement. The analysis revolves around ethnic production and reproduction of public space as concerted attempts of establishment of public visibility and symbolic ownership of space. The paper deals with street names changes in Sarajevo, i.e., the ethnic and ideological changes reflected in public space. Further, it looks at changes of names of public elementary schools, key public institutions for the dissemination of desired values and identities. The analysis has shown a dramatically changed symbolic cityscape of Sarajevo after the Dayton Peace Agreement. The share of Bosniak street and school names has substantially decreased, while most Serb names, which are concurrently related to the socialist era, were removed. Thus, the cityscape of Sarajevo, reflected through naming practices, mirrors demographic changes after the Dayton Peace Agreement and entrenches the new social reality in public space.

Bosnia and Herzegovina ; public space ; politics of presence ; cityscape ; ethnicization

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