Ranka Perić-Romić Review paper REHABILITATION OF URBAN HERITAGE IN THE SERVICE OF ETH- NO-NATIONAL DIVISIONS ON THE EXAMPLE OF SARAJEVO AND BANJA LUKA Keywords: Summary cultural-historical heritage; ethno-national This paper discusses the impact of the process of rehabilita- identity; rehabilitation; tion and revitalisation of the cultural and historical heritage of revitalization; space. Banja Luka and Sarajevo on the strengthening of ethno-natio- nal policies /patterns of a divided society. Special attention will Author: be paid to the processes of preserving the urban centres/histo- Dr. Ranka Perić-Romić is rical cores of the mentioned cities, which are recognisable as an Associate Professor at the places of separation and distancing for ‘non-belonging’ ethnic Faculty of Political Sciences of groups. In that sense, the rehabilitation of the urban heritage of the University of Banja Luka Banja Luka and Sarajevo will not be exclusively problematised as preservation and aestheticisation of cultural and historical Correspondence: heritage ‘per se’, but as a kind of instrumentalisation of urban
[email protected] space for the purpose of overemphasising ethno-national iden- tities in the post-war period. The survey will be primarily based Field: on a comparative analysis of available data on the development Special sociologies of urban centres so far. The survey results indicate that the mentioned instrumentalisation of urban heritage is manifested through the planning and construction/renovation of specific facilities that (un)justifiably fit into the existing cultural and historical context characteristic of these cities. From that per- spective, it is noticeable that the cultural and historical cores of Banja Luka and Sarajevo today have a far more significant role in promoting ethno-national identities and divisions than was the case in the past.