Moving past: probing the agency and affect of recordkeeping in individual and community lives in post-conflict Croatia

Abstract

Reporting on ongoing research, this paper reviews stories, drawn from recent literature as well as gathered through ethnographic research, that people tell about records and recordkeeping during and since the Yugoslav Wars. It focuses on what these stories reveal of the agency and affect of recordkeeping in individual and community lives, particularly in Croatia. The paper concludes with a contemplation of what might be learned from such an approach for the development of recordkeeping infrastructures that can anticipate, avert or alleviate some of the ways in which records and recordkeeping continue to traumatize or target the vulnerable, and frustrate and prevent the human and societal need to “move forward,” if not “move past.”.