Divided Education: Divergent Historiographies and Shared Discursive Practices

Abstract

This chapter will show how the interpretations of the local past diverge between Bosniak and Croat historians. At the same time it will also reveal how historians on both sides draw on similar discursive strategies when narrating a national meta-narrative. These meta-narratives can best be described as goal-oriented, while Chaps. 4-6 will illustrate how the individual narratives can better be described as target-seeking. The national and the personal narratives can only be analytically divided. In reality they are tightly entangled. The national narratives dominant in the public discourse serve as reference points for individuals in many specific ways. They support, manoeuvre around and/or contest them. On the other hand, the dominant public discourse is carried on and enacted by the same individuals. A dominant public discourse has been described as a political practice that 'establishes, sustains and changes power relations, and the collective entities (classes, blocs, communities, groups) between which power relations obtain' (Fairclough 1992: 67). Discourses contribute to the construction of 'social identities', of 'social relations' and of systems of knowledge and belief (see Fairclough 1992). However, a discourse can never be entirely captured, since it is always in the making. It is a simplification to