Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Re-archiving Mass Atrocity Records by Involving Affected Communities in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Visual Imagery and Human Rights Practice

Abstract

This chapter introduces an inclusive online archive, combining institutional and community records, for promoting alternative narratives and memory of conflict and reconciliation in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically Srebrenica. It reviews and proposes necessary changes in archival functions, procedures, and curatorial attitudes and in different stakeholders’ rights and responsibilities in records, bringing in practices from participatory, community archiving. It argues that including forensic evidentiary materials and post-atrocity photographs is essential for the new archival model to become an affective human rights platform. Free of geographic, temporal, and generational limitations, the platform could be distributed and shared, and thus suitable for members of disintegrated communities to recreate their own histories and identities and to reconnect online. Emotionally and imaginatively engaging, such survivor-centered memory spaces could be useful in local activism, serve as a dialogical space for confronting disputed histories and play a role in promoting reconciliation among affected communities.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Assmann, A. (2006). Memory, Individual and Collective. In R. E. Goodin & C. Tilly (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (pp. 210–224). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ball, P., Tabeau, E., & Verwimp, P. (2007, June 17). The Bosnian Book of Dead: Assessment of the Database [Report]. Retrieved from http://www.hicn.org/wordpress/?page_id=72.

  • Basic, G. (2015). Constructing “Ideal Victim” Stories of Bosnian War Survivors. Social Inclusion, 3, 25–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan, A., & Bastian, M. (2015). Activating the Archive: Rethinking the Role of Traditional Archives for Local Activist Projects. Archival Science, 15, 429–451.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caswell, M. (2014a). Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory and the Photographic Record in Cambodia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caswell, M. (2014b). Toward a Survivor-Centered Approach to Records Documenting Human Rights Abuse: Lessons from the Community Archives. Archival Science, 14, 307–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Commission to Preserve National Monuments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (2014, February 13). [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://old.kons.gov.ba/main.php?mod=vijesti&extra=1075460479&action=view&id_vijesti=879&lang=4.

  • Cook, T. (2007). Remembering the Future: Appraisal of Records and the Role of Archives in Constructing Social Memory. In F. X. Blouin & G. W. Rosenberg (Eds.), Archives, Documentation and the Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar (pp. 169–181). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, T. (2012). Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms. Archival Science, 13, 95–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crossland, Z. (2013). Evidential Regimes of Forensic Archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42, 121–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donia, R. J. (2007). The New Masters of Memory: Libraries, Archives, and Museums in Post-communist Bosnia-Herzegovina. In F. X. Blouin & G. W. Rosenberg (Eds.), Archives, Documentation and the Institutions of Social Memory: Essays from the Sawyer Seminar (pp. 393–401). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donia, R. J., & Bećirević, E. (2008, April 4). ICTY Archive Must Be Open to All [Open Letter]. Retrieved from https://iwpr.net/global-voices/icty-archive-must-be-open-all.

  • Gafić, Z. (2010). Quest for Identity [Photo Project]. Retrieved from http://www.ziyahgafic.ba/photo.php?id=14.

  • Gafić, Z. (2014, March). Everyday Objects, Tragic Histories [TED Talk]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ziyah_gafic_everyday_objects_tragic_histories#t-198298.

  • Gilliland, A. J., & McKemmish, S. (2014). The Role of Participatory Archives in Furthering Human Rights, Reconciliation and Recovery. Atlanti, 24, 79–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haglund, W. D., Connor, M., & Scott, D. D. (2001). The Archaeology of Contemporary Mass Graves. Historical Archaeology, 35, 57–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halilovich, H. (2013). Places of Pain, Forced Displacement and Trans-Local Identities in Bosnian War-torn Communities. New York and Oxford: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halilovich, H. (2014). Reclaiming Erased Lives: Archives, Records and Memories in Post-war Bosnia and the Bosnian Diaspora. Archival Science, 14, 231–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halilovich, H. (2016). Re-imaging and Re-imagining the Past After ‘Memoricide’: Intimate Archives as Inscribed Memories of the Missing. Archival Science, 16, 77–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helms, E. (2013). Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women’s Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). (2014, December). Bosnia and Herzegovina: Missing Persons from the Armed Conflicts of the 1990s: A Stocktaking [Report]. Retrieved from https://www.icmp.int/?resources=missing-persons-from-the-armed-conflict-of-the-1990s-a-stocktaking-on-the-effort-to-locate-and-identify-missing-persons-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina.

  • Kaye, D. (2014). Archiving Justice: Conceptualizing the Archives of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Archival Science, 14, 381–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keenan, T. (2014). Getting the Dead to Tell Me What Happened: Justice, Prosopopoeia, and Forensic Afterlives. In Forensic Architecture (Ed.), Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth (pp. 35–55). Berlin: Sternberg Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ketelaar, E. (2009). A Living Archive, Shared by Communities of Records. In J. Bastian & B. Alexander (Eds.), Community Archives: The Shaping of Memory (pp. 109–132). London: Facet.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Komar, D. A., & Buikstra J. E. (2008). Forensic Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Practice. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowe, P. (2014). The Forensic Turn: Bearing Witness and the ‘Thingness’ of the Photograph. In L. Kennedy & C. Patrick (Eds.), The Violence of the Image: Photography and International Conflict (pp. 211–235). New York and London: I.B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKemmish, S. (2001). Placing Records Continuum Theory and Practice. Archival Science, 1, 333–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nettelfield, L. J. (2010). Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal’s Impact in a Postwar State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Physicians for Human Rights. (1997a). PHR Completes Largest Forensic Study in Its Ten-Year History, Unearths Crucial Evidence in Bosnia and Croatia. RECORD: Newsletter of Physicians for Human Rights, 10, 9–11. In HU OSA 386-1-2-5, Records of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Bosnia Projects: Identification Project: Lists of Missing Persons: Old Data, 1997–1998. Budapest: Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Physicians for Human Rights. (1997b). Human Remains at a Surface Collection Near Kravica. In HU OSA 386-2-2-1, Records of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Bosnia Projects: Forensic Assistance Project: Findings: Kravica, 1997. Budapest: Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Physicians for Human Rights. (1998). Personal Effects of a Victim Recovered at the Čarakovo Exhumation Site. In HU OSA 386-2-5, Records of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Bosnia Projects: Forensic Assistance Project: Photographs: Melissa Connor, 1998. Budapest: Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Physicians for Human Rights. (1999). Information Sheet of an Identified Srebrenica Victim with Details of His Household. In HU OSA 386-1-1-1, Records of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Bosnia Projects: Identification Project: Identified Cases: Identified Case CR 03, 1999. Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riedlmayer, A. J. (2002). Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992–1996: A Post-war Survey of Selected Municipalities [Report]. Retrieved from https://archnet.org/publications/3481.

  • Schuppli, S. (2014a). Entering Evidence: Cross-Examining the Court Records of the ICTY. In Forensic Architecture (Ed.), Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth (pp. 279–316). Berlin: Sternberg Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schuppli, S. (2014b). Material Witness (Excerpt) [Video File]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/93826545.

  • Softić, T. (2014, November 28). Catalogue of Silence: Sarajevo’s Museums and Libraries, 20 Years After the War [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://tanjasoftic.exposure.co/catalogue-of-silence.

  • Szilagyi, C. (2014). Representation of Mass Atrocities in Imagined ‘Commemorative Arenas’. Versus, 119, 71–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torres, F. (2008). The Images of Memory: A Civil Narration of History. A Photo Essay. Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, 9, 157–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Human Rights Council. (2005, February 8). Updated Set of Principles for the Protection of Human Rights Through Action to Combat Impunity. E/CN.4/2005/102/Add.1 [Report]. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/Docs/asp/ws.asp?m=E/CN.4/2005/102/Add.1.

  • United Nations Security Council. (2009, May 21). Report of the Secretary-General on the Administrative and Budgetary Aspects of the Options for Possible Locations for the Archives of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Seat of the Residual Mechanism(s) for the Tribunals, S/2009/258 [Report]. Retrieved from http://repository.un.org/handle/11176/12776.

  • Vlaisavljevic, U. (2013, November 8). Bosnian War Memories Filmed for Oral History Archive [Article]. Retrieved from http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnian-memories-to-build-reconciliation.

  • Wilson, R. A., & Baas, S. (2016, December). Open the Archives of the Yugoslavia Tribunal! [Open Letter]. Retrieved from http://ictylegacy.org/.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

    Csaba Szilagyi

Authors
  1. Csaba Szilagyi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Csaba Szilagyi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Sandra Ristovska

  2. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Monroe Price

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Szilagyi, C. (2018). Re-archiving Mass Atrocity Records by Involving Affected Communities in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Ristovska, S., Price, M. (eds) Visual Imagery and Human Rights Practice. Global Transformations in Media and Communication Research - A Palgrave and IAMCR Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75987-6_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation