Contesting Postwar Mostar

Abstract

This chapter employs negotiating agency on postwar Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina) to understand acts come about in its urban conflicts over peace(s). The first line of analysis uses a feature film about the city to explore the negotiation between Slavko (who wants to act in line with the coexisting peace) and a world that enforces the ethnonational—Bosniak and Croat—peace(s). The generated insights on how difficult it to pursue coexisting acts in an ethnonationalist world are then contextualised in non-fiction Mostar where two foci emerge: compliance with as well as resistance towards the ethnonational peace(s) by people supporting the coexisting one. The second line of analysis subsequently explores how the ethnonational grip on employment and the segregated education system drives people towards ethnonational acts while the third line of analysis explores how students at the Old Gymnasium as well as activists at Abrašević manage to negotiate coexisting acts.