Places of Pain: Forced Displacement, Popular Memory and Trans-local Identities in Bosnian War-torn Communities

For displaced persons, memory and identity is performed, (re)constructed and (re)negotiated daily. Forced displacement radically reshapes identity, with results ranging from successful hybridization to feelings of permanent misplacement. This compelling and intimate description of places of pain and (be)longing that were lost during the 1992–95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as of survivors’ places of resettlement in Australia, Europe and North America, serves as a powerful illustration of the complex interplay between place, memory and identity. It is even more the case when those places have been vandalized, divided up, brutalized and scarred. However, as the author shows, these places of humiliation and suffering are also places of desire, with displaced survivors emulating their former homes in the far corners of the globe where they have resettled.

Hariz Halilovich, social anthropologist and writer, is a Professor at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne. His research interests include place-based identity politics, forced migration, politically motivated violence, memory studies and human rights. He has been recipient of a number of prestigious research and writing awards in Australia and internationally.