Imagine being alone: Making sense of life in contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina by remembering the past

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the ways in which people experience changes that are transpiring in their society and how the experience of living through these changes influences their perception of their society and their place in it. The setting that is the focus of my study is Sarajevo, the capital of postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14 years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the 1992-1995 war in this country. Through a single case study, I examine how a woman who has spent her entire life in the same neighborhood talks about changes that are taking place in her country, her city, and her neighborhood. The findings suggest that the experience of displacement is possible even if one had never been physically displaced, an experience that appears to be inextricably linked to the perceived loss of socio-cultural context. This finding could serve as a basis for future investigations into how loss of social context relates to peoples' experience of belonging, a research venture that is especially warranted in today's changing world, with many people losing their sense of belongingness due to either actual physical displacement or social and cultural changes that are transpiring both in their immediate environment as well as globally.