Moralities in Postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina

Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina

Federica Tarabusi

Abstract: Despite considerable analysis of development policies in postwar Bosnia- Herzegovina, local–internationals encounters have received less attention. In an attempt to fi ll this gap, this article traces the discursive processes through which development professionals frame their narratives about Bosnian society, and in turn, how its inhabitants experience the internationals staying in the country. Applying Maria Todorova’s framework, I show how Western “expatriates” tend to incorporate the Balkans’ liminality into their social constructs to depoliticize development practices. On the other hand, I approach emic understandings of Europeanness and Balkanism as a situationally embedded and contested process that comes into play to (re)draw social and moral boundaries in Bosnian society. I conclude by considering local–international encounters as a privileged site for exploring the postsocialist state but also new political subjectivities in contemporary Bosnia. Keywords: Balkanism, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Europeanness, internationals

While staying in Sarajevo in 2010, a taxi driver Th is apparently trivial episode weaving to- told me that he was happy so many Europeans gether emic and etic understandings of Bosnia- were coming to his country. With a sneer on his Herzegovina1 provides a foretaste of the rela- face, he explained how “internationals” brought tions between “internationals” and “locals”2 with them not only a series of serious problems, that constitute a running theme throughout this yet to be resolved in the country, but also a article. breath of freshness and modernity in a context First, it indicates how deeply the settlement paralyzed by corruption and inertia. As soon as of international institutions, as well as the com- we got out of the taxi, the Finnish offi cial who ings and goings of foreign “expatriates”3 (stranci had been sitting next to me commented: “Do in Bosnian), have permeated the cultural in- not believe it as a compliment to us. I know timacy (Herzfeld 1997) of the country and its the Balkans, and I could say that any excuse is inhabitants. Such collective perceptions on a good one for pointing out hostility toward one the part of Bosnian citizens of their cohabita- of his fellow citizens . . . Th e unity of people here tion with “the West” in the local context must continues to be almost a mirage.” not be considered in a vacuum; rather, they are

Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 87 (2020): 75–88 © Th e Author doi:10.3167/fcl.2020.870106 76 | Federica Tarabusi historically embedded in broader social and sion and inclusion in the political, social, and geopolitical processes that make the context of economic spaces of contemporary BiH (Coles post-Dayton BiH paradigmatic in many ways 2007). Overcoming the binarism between locals (Hayden 2002). As is well known, the interplay and internationals, this article aims to provide between large-scale surveillance by humanitar- further ethnographic insight into the “black ian organizations (Pandolfi 2000) and develop- box” of these everyday encounters (Stubbs ment eff orts in postwar BiH has brought many 2015: 9; see also Jansen 2010). Western professionals to move to, live in, or stay Second, the above-mentioned anecdote re- for temporary periods in the country. fl ects how prevailing normative visions formu- More than 20 years aft er the Dayton agree- lated outside Bosnia, “drawn from violence to ments, anyone traveling through the region is reconciliation” (Jansen et al. 2016), oft en inform likely to encounter a series of international of- the parameter through which events in Bosnia fi ces, institutes, and insignia and run into tech- are discussed locally. While the taxi driver’s nicians and diplomats competing over resources words associate Western Europe with moder- with the common goal of “developing” the re- nity and change, the offi cial’s comment is based gion. Far from monolithic, the international on a widespread perception, common in the community includes groups of practitioners Balkans, that casts their peoples as “inclined” with heterogeneous professional profi les: aid to internal rivalries and forced cohabitation. In- administrators and volunteers staying for me- deed, the Scandinavian man interpreted the taxi dium to long periods, development advisors driver’s positive comment about Europeans as a who traipse in and out of the country as if they way of denigrating his compatriots and tracing were tourists, and diplomats visiting for a few lines of division through the local population. days who travel the world in suits and ties. More than two decades since the Dayton Ac- Th erefore, internationals constitute a signifi cant cords, Bosnia continues to bear a common-sense social experience for postsocialist BiH residents: association with interethnic violence and ten- a large percentage of the Bosnians I encoun- sions (Hayden 2007; Jansen et al. 2016). Th e tered during my fi eldwork had worked—or had ethnocentric interpretations and mythologies friends or relatives who worked—with NGOs produced in the face of the confl icts in former or government agencies and had the opportu- Yugoslavia have permeated public discourse to nity to meet Western experts, oft en perceived such an extent that the term “Balkan” has be- as a foreign elite4 who drive recognizable cars come synonymous with “chaotic” and “violent.”5 and frequent international restaurants but also Similarly, in geopolitical jargon Balkanization like to sample ćevapčići in a traditional kiosk in has not only come to denote the parcelization Baščaršija (Sarajevo’s Turkish quarter). of large and viable political units, but has also At the same time, the notion of internation- become a synonym for a reversion to the tribal, ality has changed over time, evolving from a the backward, the barbarian. fi xed identity marker to a “category of practices” Th ese reductive narratives evoke Maria irrespective of people’s actual nationality (Kout- Todo rova’s well-known “Balkanism” paradigm ková 2016). As part of this shift internation- (1997). Th rough a selection of reports by Euro- ality has become an ever-more popular term pean diplomats, journalists, and academics as for denoting a range of lifestyle, consumption, well as accounts from popular literature, Todor- performance, and social worlds also shared by ova has put together a detailed historical recon- some locals, such as those working for interna- struction of the ways certain understandings tional agencies (see Baker 2014). However, the and images of the Balkans have granted mean- blurring of the local–international boundary ing to the ambiguity of this area, framing it as seems to reinforce, rather than erode, its signif- the semi-colonial, semi-civilized, semi-eastern icance (Stubbs 2016), redrawing forms of exclu- part of Europe: the Other within. Th is percep- Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 77 tion emphasizes the area’s peculiar liminal po- into a “waiting room” are promised inclusion in sition and status of incomplete alterity, a part of Europe as soon as they Europeanize, and thus Europe but also its antithetical periphery: de-Balkanize, themselves (Kolstø 2016). Against the grain of offi cial discourses, eth- Th us, ambiguity is treated as anomaly. Be- nographers have launched a refl exive emic en- cause of their indefi nable character, per- gagement with the everyday experiences of post- sons or phenomena in transitional states, socialist societies, shaped by particular global like in marginal ones, are considered historical conjunctures (Jansen et al. 2016; see dangerous, both being in danger them- also Lofranco and Pusceddu 2017). Challenging selves and emanating danger to others. the normative view imposed by core EU mem- In the face of facts and ideas that cannot bers, such research has explored a wide range of be crammed in pre-existing schemata, or possible meanings of “Europeanization” in local which invite more than a single interpre- Balkan cultural and political debates of these tation, one can either blind oneself to the countries supposedly comprising the European inadequacy of concepts or seriously deal periphery (T. Petrović 2014). In a similar vein, with the fact that some realities elude empirical insights into the categories and pro- them. (Todorova 1997: 17) cedures deployed by local and global agencies subject ethnocentric discourses to critical scru- While other authors including Milica Bakić- tiny, paving the way for a new understanding of Hayden (1995) have considered these assump- the social practices, legitimacy, subjectivity, and tions to represent a variant of Orientalist dis- policies governing BiH (Jansen et al. 2016). course (Said 1978), Todorova instead seeks to Building on such ethnographic insights, this demonstrate that “unlike orientalism, which is article investigates everyday encounters be- a discourse about an imputed opposition, Bal- tween European development professionals and kanism is a discourse about an imputed ambi- local residents, especially those working for in- guity” (1997: 17). ternational agencies, in “mature Dayton BiH.”7 More recently, some scholars have invited us I thus trace the discursive processes Western to bring a postcolonial perspective to bear on our expatriates employ in constructing the local understanding of postsocialist experiences and context and, in turn, the representational forms contexts that were not formally colonies (Chari through which its inhabitants experience Euro- and Verdery 2009); examples include humani- peans staying in Bosnia. Applying Todorova’s tarian missions in ex-Yugoslavia, forms of large- framework of Balkanism, the article shows how scale surveillance targeting multi-protectorates diff erent ideas of Europe and the Balkans come (Hayden 2002; Pandolfi 2000), and the distinc- into play not only in generating asymmetries tive regulatory trajectories of “post-socialist neo- between international and local actors, but also liberalisation” embedded in international eff orts in negotiating new forms of social organization (Jansen et al. 2016). Adopting this lens, Tanja and belonging in postsocialist Bosnia. Petrović has pointed out (2013) how contem- Th e article is organized as follows. Th e fi rst porary political hierarchies in Europe conceal section briefl y describes the diff erent phases of a framework of discursive constructions of the my data collection to delineate the empirical Balkans as a “Colonial Other.” Th e dynamics of background. I then examine the ambivalent per- eastward EU enlargement and the unequal mo- ceptions of Bosnia expressed by European pro- bility of Balkan citizens in this territory display fessionals, highlighting the gap between the indeed the tropes of a colonialist and paternal- inclusivity of offi cial development rhetoric and istic discourse that indefi nitely casts the Western their actually exclusionary practices. Finally, Balkans6 as Europe’s semi-periphery in need of the last section describes how some Bosnian “saving.” Th erefore, these countries corralled residents occupying specifi c BiH locations de- 78 | Federica Tarabusi ploy variegated and multifaceted ideas of “Eu- characterized as both the victims of labor in- ropeanness” and “Balkanism” in peculiar spatial security and an elite that speaks development and temporal constellations (Jansen et al. 2016). jargon, travels just as internationals do, and I conclude by considering international–local sometimes earns more than state offi cials (see boundaries as a privileged site for re-thinking the Sampson 2002; Tarabusi 2011). Building on postsocialist state but also shedding light on new these observations, the article represents an at- political subjectivities in contemporary Bosnia. tempt to look at these local young adults’ subjectivities, not necessarily either disadvantaged workers or overprivileged elites. Fieldwork Th anks to these ethnographic and professional experiences, I was able to build trust- Th is article’s ethnographic foundation mainly based relationships with some Bosnian citizens comprises data collected from 2005 to 2012 as well as the European professionals involved during repeated periods spent in small villages in the formal and informal goings-on of the and large urban centers of the Federation of development projects I was working on or in- Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mostar, Sarajevo, Bi- vestigating. Methodologically speaking, moving hać, Tuzla, Bašigovci) and the Republika Srpska across the interstitial spaces of international (Banja Luka, Prijedor, Doboj, Prnjavor). I col- development calls for a “polymorphous engage- lected additional empirical material while main- ment” (Markowitz 2001). Data were collected taining long-distance relationships with some from a disparate array of sources including not Bosnian informants aft er leaving the fi eld (from only participant observation in local project of- 2012 to 2017). Th is data collection thus took fi ces but also lunches with consultants, layovers place at diff erent times and in highly diverse at airports, trips around the area alongside offi - fi elds. cials and local staff , virtual channels and meet- Th e fi rst phase involved a multisited ethnog- ings via Skype, telephone, or email. raphy of aid conducted between 2004 and 2006 Nevertheless, working on local/international in Italy and Bosnia and aimed at examining the relations requires the ethnographer to refl exively institutional coalitions taking shape among do- consider her own position as part of a transna- nors, local government, and NGOs as part of an tional community (Mosse 2013). Indeed, the educational project fi nanced by the Italian Min- fi eld is dotted with fl uid, situated representations istry of Foreign Aff airs and implemented in 41 of anthropologist-consultants who move back BiH schools.8 and forth across local–international boundaries. A subsequent phase (between 2007 and As Karla Koutková (2016) has also shown, Bos- 2012) included conversations and observation nian co-workers might perceive ethnographers carried out while working as an anthropologist as nasa (one of us) by virtue of their own emic consultant with two development projects pro- experience of the context even while seeing them moting cultural tourism in Bosnia.9 Th ese proj- as stranci (foreigners) in other circumstances by ects, a collaboration between the municipalities virtue of their national affi liations. However, it of Bologna and Tuzla, involved my staying in the was precisely by playing on the ambiguity of my region multiple times for periods of about three positions that I was able to fi nd common ground weeks at a time to supervise project activities. with various interlocutors occupying asymmet- Th e most recent research period (from 2012 rical positions in the political arena. to 2017) involved ongoing long-distance relationships with some young locals recruited by international agencies as project offi cers, lan- When developers encounter Balkan(ism) guage intermediaries, and support staff . Belong- ing to a rather ambiguous social group (Baker Much of my time spent with European pro- 2014; Koutková 2016), local workers have been fessionals working in Bosnia revealed how the Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 79 discourses informally circulating among inter- returned to these issues more seriously. During nationals oft en tend to incorporate common- a long journey together to Prijedor, he told me: place stereotypes about the Balkans. It is quite common to fi nd such narratives expressing Knowing that you know pretty well how the idea that interethnic tensions and native this country works . . . you will fi nd it corruption practices represent a foregone ob- amusing how easy it is to capture our stacle to processes of “democratization.” Th ese strangeness, too. [laughs] Th e political assumptions are not always particularly un- corruption here is a mess. We agree. We derstated. During a lunch in Mostar, a British common mortals face a system where, if OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooper- you don’t have connections, private re- ation in Europe) offi cial argued that working in lationships . . . you are cut out [. . .] but the Balkans “is not an easy thing to do” because I don’t think that all this is completely “politicians are corrupt” and local colleagues unheard of outside Bosnia, either . . . I are “uncooperative.” Looking at the other peo- have worked with European agencies for ple present, mostly educational program con- a long time and I have always seen this sultants, a Finnish senior manager added that stuff . “in countries like Bosnia” it is better to avoid referencing war or politics when speaking with As noted by Koutková (2016), specifi c dis- the natives lest we “rekindle old rivalries.” Th e cursive constructions of the Balkans can be expert, in BiH for the fi rst time, reached into useful for maintaining an “ethical dualism” in his bag and pulled out a copy of Balkan Ghosts10 which internationals’ professionalism and net- and, showing it to his European colleagues, working are seen as essentially diff erent than stated: “it says everything worth knowing about local practices such as corruption, nepotism, the Balkans.” veze (relationships, connections), and štele12 As these narrative fragments suggest, fi xed (exchanges and practices through a personal- and tribalized visions of the Balkans can serve as ized connection). Questioning this tendency the foundations for a discursive strategy of mo- to confound distinct social phenomena, Mahir bilizing and normalizing development practices was concerned with establishing distance be- and, in so doing, “de-politicizing” the eff ects of tween political corruption and those forms of such interventions (Ferguson 1994). During the sociality people use to navigate services and ne- lunch, various stereotypes were deployed to in- gotiate the rights they feel entitled to (Brković terpret the forms of “dysfunction” plaguing the 2016). Th anks in part to his contact with inter- educational sector, framing problems as part nationals, he thus underlined the risks involved of the “local pedagogical tradition” and deeply in an ethnocentric understanding of BiH as an rooted corruption characterizing the former eccentric place “frozen” in the remnants of Yu- Yugoslavian system (Tarabusi 2017). While goslavian socialist culture. making these comments, an OSCE consultant However, discourse on the Balkans appeared turned to a Bosnian “colleague” who worked for rather ambivalent. In many cases, comments the same agency as a linguistic intermediary to such as these were alternated with an idealized say: “and that is why many young people decide image of Bosnia as an “ethnic mosaic,” a place to go abroad . . . isn’t that right, Mahir?”11 of perennial pluralism (Donia and Fine 1994), Having worked for the OSCE for some time, and of the Balkans as a land of “transition,” as Mahir was not surprised by these comments. symbolized by Ivo Andrić’s famous bridge. Like other Bosnians, moreover, he oft en com- During my fi eldwork, I oft en found aid workers plained ironically about his own country’s inef- expressing the idea that the Balkans have always fective aspects, and so he did on this occasion been a “crossroads of peoples” and “mix of eth- as well. A few days later, however, prompted by nic groups and religions,” as the project manager my critical comments on what we had heard, he of an Italian NGO stated during a trip by car to 80 | Federica Tarabusi

Bihać. Th erefore, the ethnocentric approach of lens to grant meaning to their presence in the “semi-colonial” and “semi-civilized” Europe fi eld (in the words of an Italian development can coexist with essentialist ideas of otherness worker: “I am here to give Yugoslavia back to that cast the liminal nature of the Balkans in an Bosnia”). Although this discourse is ostensibly abstract and romantic light (Tarabusi 2017). opposed to tribalized images of Bosnia and Sometimes these ideas are consolidated into the Bosnians, it nonetheless reproduces reifi ed actual theories, brimming with a certain roman- ideas about them. Th e idea of the Balkans as the ticism, actors brandish as proof of their sen- “semi-Other” inside Europe imbues ideas and sitivity to “local cultures” and their interest in knowledge about them with ambiguity: expres- “native benefi ciaries.” As Jean-Pierre Olivier de sions such as “an enigma” and “it is a bit Europe, Sardan reminds us, in fact, although developers a bit not” appear repeatedly in the narratives of may come bearing good will, they nonetheless aid workers. frequently tend to resort to fuzzy concepts bor- Nevertheless, their extensive experience in rowed from “bazaar-style anthropology” and the fi eld can lead some workers to interrogate “pseudo-sociological notions that bear a closer widespread stereotypes that reduce Bosnia to resemblance to clichés and stereotypes than its ethnic components. Many of my Italian co- to analytical tools” (1995: 28). Oft en featuring workers who spent signifi cant time in the coun- terms such as “ethnic mosaic” or “mix of cul- try cited it as an important learning experience, tures,” this do-it-yourself sociology appears to noting that ethnic categories are more a “prod- be legitimized by the mere fact of the speaker uct” of the confl ict than its cause: “if you talk to having been in the fi eld and having interacted, people about their past, you put together a so- albeit for a short time, with the natives. During cial map that is not about their ethnic relations a break from work in Bašigovci, for instance, a . . . it was coming from a poor or rich family, Spanish aid worker provided her sister, who had from the countryside or the city, that made your come to visit her in the country, with a detailed life more diff erent” (Francesca, project manager report on the “customs and traditions of the in Tuzla). Bosnians.” She regaled her with fascinating sto- By acknowledging the fl uid forms of be- ries of their extravagant lifestyles, values based longing and sociality that run through Bosnian on loyalty and their eating habits, considering society (see Jansen et al. 2016), such narratives the fact that she lived with a family of bošnjaci partly mirror ethnographic studies conducted (the term commonly used to indicate Muslim before the confl ict. Against common-sense vi- Bosnians) suffi cient to substantiate the authen- sions, an extensive body of literature has shown ticity of her pseudo-ethnographic accounts. Sat- that ethnic identifi cations in the region have isfi ed with her understanding of the fi eld, she always been situationally embedded, based on spent some time painting a picture of a series norms of loyalty and reciprocity (Bringa 1995). of customs she considered to be widespread In contexts shaped by massive migratory fl ows among Muslims (although in reality they have from the countryside to the city, ethnic affi lia- historically been associated with an agricultural tions have historically been connected to even and pastoral heritage). more meaningful forms of identifi cation such as In some cases, these representations by West- the social categories of urban or rural dwellers. erners also draw on the idea of Mirna Bosna Cornelia Sorabji (1994) made this point in the (literally: peaceful Bosnia) promoted by local mid-1980s when challenging certain narratives movements known as “Yugonostalgics” who prevailing in offi cial Yugoslav political termi- seek to recover an idyllic past marked by Bratsvo nology, showing that, in daily life, the notion i Jedsinstvo (unity and brotherhood). Specifi - of narod, closely connected to that of komšiluk cally, some internationals appear to reinterpret (neighborhood), was much more multilayered certain tropes of “Titoism” through an ethical than that of “nation.” In this vein, recent studies Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 81 have shown that, in practice, local nationalist that does not overlap with the local social projects and international integration policies worlds of “their benefi ciaries.” work to fl atten prewar patterns of residence and everyday space of transethnic narod (Hro- madžić 2013), thereby disrupting an important European(ess), politika, and “Yugoslav chronotope”13 (Spaskovska 2014). new forms of (im)morality However, the fact that some development workers are partially aware of the socially con- As I was sometimes perceived as an “interna- structed nature of ethnicity does not necessar- tional,” the questions I posed to young Bosnians ily mean that Bosnians are not encapsulated in working for international agencies were oft en reductive representations. As a matter of fact, seen as inappropriate: “Sorry, but I have to get the rhetoric of national unity fostered by profes- back to work, there is work to be done here . . . sionals—such as that of restoring “multicultural as you [meaning: internationals] know very well,” Bosnia”—oft en masks a process of diff erenti- Zlata told me one day, sarcastically. ation that, in practice, actually acts to exclude My short missions in the fi eld gave me the this possibility (Coles 2007). chance to establish “long-distance” relation- Despite the inclusive populist rhetoric they ships with some of them, however, and to delve emphasized, the daily routines of international more deeply into their everyday social worlds workers appear characterized by a yawning lack during subsequent stays. Although some Bos- of social networks and relations with their local nians found it surprising that an “international” “neighbors.” Although they tend to represent would be so interested in spending time with themselves as “cosmopolitan people,” during them at a cafe or shopping center, this interest their stay in the country many European aid on my part changed their perception of me. workers actually seem to prefer events that en- While having a drink in Tuzla a few weeks later, shrine a certain localism and feeling of national Zlata introduced me to her cousin by saying, community. When I was in Sarajevo, I remem- “Th is is Federica, Italian by origin but Bosnian ber some Italian co-workers being puzzled that by adoption.” I would choose to spend time with several Cro- Even while maintaining good relationships atian and Bosnian women in Baščaršija instead with foreign colleagues, the local workers of accompanying them downtown to watch a sometimes emphasized the distance between series of fi lms by Italian director Federico Fel- themselves and the development policies seen lini. Moreover, most of them admitted that they as responsible for fostering a culture of inter- did not feel “at home” in Bosnia (Carlo, Italian national dependence under the rhetoric of na- aid administrator) and viewed their time in tional construction. Th e dividing line between the country exclusively in terms of developing the immorality of local politicians and the hy- their curriculum vitae and “professional career,” pocrisy of international actors appeared rather contrasting it with other “human experiences” blurry. Commenting on a Sarajevo newspaper, abroad, for example in Africa or South America Samir and Zilah expressed irritation at the Con- (Kirsten, Danish project offi cer). stitutional Court’s tendency to reproduce the Although Europeans and Bosnian citizens same ethno-national categories it was supposed oft en worked at the same aid agency offi ces and to prevent: “Nobody trusts politicians or parties shared a sort of professional intimacy, the life anymore. Th ey prostitute themselves and only of internationals in Bosnian society is therefore act in their own interests. I call it mafi ja . . . characterized by a certain ambiguity: while they maybe you, as an Italian, know what I’m talking promote inclusive and participatory develop- about! [smiles]” mental practices, they keep a part of their pri- Far from being produced in a vacuum, such vate lives confi ned to a supranational space14 ideas are engendered in a context in which the 82 | Federica Tarabusi terrain of offi cial politika is a morally debased versity student from Bihać, other local residents universe that clashes with the social norms peo- who had similarly lost loved ones and suff ered ple share and negotiate in everyday life. Con- during the confl ict oft en viewed such benefi ts cepts of (im)morality and (in)justice do not as “privileges” rather than rights. In addition constitute abstract ideological universes (Delpla to state subsidies, some victims quickly found 2007); rather, they cut across every sphere of jobs, easily obtained positions in the public ad- people’s social lives and circulate in urban cen- ministration and banded together in local asso- ters through clichés and anecdotes, deeply per- ciations that, according to the researcher, oft en meating local cultural debates. Indeed, strongly pursue their own personal welfare above all. critical takes on local politics are a daily occur- Th ese critiques of (both local and international) rence. Th e expression politika je kurva (politics policies should also be understood in relation is a whore) has become popular in Bosnia, for to the contradictions characterizing the fi eld of example, to express widespread outrage at cor- state-organized social protection, which oft en rupt and clientelistic practices (Helms 2007), operates through personal relationships and while terms such as foteljasi (armchair politi- favors (like veze or štele). While the “intrusion” cians) and mafi ja (cowardice, corruption, and of the sociality of kinship, friendship, and pa- treachery) were coined in the postwar period to tronage into state arenas has normalized certain condemn the nepotism of political parties and local hierarchies (Brković 2016: 17), it has also politicians, oft en associated with the elites who fueled the condemnation of immoral practices were responsible for the war (Grandits 2007). that unequally distribute public benefi ts and so- Th e term država, on the other hand, is some- cial provisions in Bosnian society. times used indistinctly to denote both the state Ideas of internationality likewise depend and the governing party (Helms 2007; Tarabusi on the specifi c social contexts in which they 2011). It is quite telling that the leaders of lo- are situated. In places such as Mostar that have cal NGOs make a point of emphasizing their most dramatically symbolized the confl ict, lo- moral integrity and the “apolitical” character of cals sought to restore a process of normaliza- their activities in order to retain credibility (see tion, a state that the “exoticizing” gaze of experts Sampson 2002). on short-term visits seems to negate (Palm- In this setting, therefore, “morality” comes to berger 2010). Although local residents did not constitute a cross-cutting category that is used deny that there are tensions between national to judge or denigrate the everyday behavior groups, they oft en suggested that internationals of individuals and groups. During fi eldwork, contribute to generating disparaging images of I noted Bosnian citizens deploying the cate- their city, images also reinforced by their “lo- gories of “corrupt/honest Croatian” and “bad/ cal” neighbors at times. During a coff ee break at good Muslim” in variegated and multifaceted an international meeting in Republika Srpska, ways to diff erentiate among individuals belong- Dijana, a co-worker from Mostar, was off ended ing to the same national group (Kolind 2008). when a local resident asked her: “But what is And yet Bosnian society still harbors a degree the situation down there like now?” On our way of resentment against certain social categories, back to Mostar, Dijana explained: “From West- such as “displaced persons,” “refugees,” and ern foreigners you expect stereotypes . . . but “war victims,” generated directly by the con- when even people living in Bosnia can’t manage fl ict (Bougarel et al. 2007). In some parts of the to read history, I can’t stand it! Th e war has been country, the term lopovi (literally: thieves) is over for almost 20 years and there are still peo- used to express moral indignation about people ple living in your country who believe that we who took advantage of the confl ict to seize a se- live in the midst of rubble, ruins!” ries of benefi ts (economic, legal, and social) in Th e social changes sweeping over urban a highly precarious setting. According to a uni- contexts in the postwar period thus play a key Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 83 role in reshaping local imaginaries and shift ing Nevertheless, local/international boundaries borders/boundaries in the native city (Lofranco become even more ambivalent and blurred in 2016). In cities such as Sarajevo, the term stranci the experiences of young Bosnians employed in (foreigners) might not necessarily be used to international development work. On one hand, refer to Western expatriates; indeed, this word they are critical of BiH’s exclusion from Europe more oft en refers to groups of fellow Bosnians and the way it traps the country indefi nitely in a from a rural background, such as displaced “waiting room.” One day Elvira joked that, since persons, refugees, and repatriates returning to she had relatives who had moved to Germany their own cities aft er the confl ict. In this vein, long before, she could call herself at least partly Anders Stefansson (2007) has shown that resi- European. Sead instead expressed his ambiva- dents who lived in Sarajevo before the confl ict lent relationship with Europe through the met- (Sarajlije) do not have a positive view of “new- aphor of a gendered entity: “We oft en say that comers” (dosljaci) and that such forms of iden- Europe is like a woman you may want at times, tifi cation are deeply rooted in the pre-existing but you don’t give in to the temptation because historical tensions between urban residents and you would regret cheating on your wife.” Con- rural populations running through the socialist testing European policies, Sead framed Europe period (Bringa 1995). Sarajlije oft en complain as something that evokes betrayal, breaking about the “backwardness” and provincial atti- faith with one’s family, protection, and loyalty to tudes of ruralites, thus reproducing the same one’s own country. categorizations that Europeans tend to ascribe On the other hand, in opposing ethnocentric to Bosnia and the Balkans (city-dwellers/cul- ideas of the Balkans these young workers nego- tured people/cosmopolitans versus farmers/ tiate dynamic meanings of Europe, seen not as backward people/small town dwellers). During rigid membership in a supranational organiza- a return trip to Sarajevo, a local co-worker made tion (EU) but as a social space embodying new facetious comments about the meeting we had images, aspirations, and subjectivities: just held at a small, rural village school. Discuss- ing what he defi ned as the “coarse” behavior of I speak English, you know, I’ve traveled a Bosnian teacher, he jokingly noted that the and with this job I could potentially work man’s rural background meant he could not be abroad . . . I don’t feel cut off . Maybe on expected “to know all the courtesies chapter and paper . . . but I’m not too concerned about verse.” BiH’s entry into the European Union.15 I Unlike contexts in which they are perceived don’t think it would change my life any- as a hostile population, here internationals em- way. Like many of my friends, I feel Euro- bodied values of urbanity and cosmopolitan- pean because I have desires for myself and ism (Stefansson 2007) in opposition to styles for my country. Th ere is no such thing as a and features seen as constitutive of Yugoslavia Europe, us with our dreams are it. (Elvira, or the Balkans (rural, small-town, backward). 33 y.o.) While Balkanistic ideas are sometimes rejected, therefore, they may also be internalized to build Lots of young people want to leave BiH. internal boundaries through “local otherness.” I understand, unemployment is high, and As Nicole Lindstrom noted in relation to Slove- there are few opportunities here. But I’m nia and Croatia, people’s own liminal positions studying economics and trying to gain ex- can lead to contradictory identity constructions perience . . . the job with EducAid [Italian “whereby an insistence on concretizing one’s NGO] is just one . . . We shouldn’t be run- Europeanness coincides with a certain aware- ning away; we should stay in this country ness that this European status is never ontologi- instead, in part to change its image . . . not cally secure” (2003: 313). because it lacks problems but because na- 84 | Federica Tarabusi

tionalisms here and politics outside have (Hromadžić 2013) that are embodied in the Yu- created a distorted image. My cousin, who goslav chronotope (Spaskovska 2014). was born in Switzerland, recently asked me However, fi eldwork helps us to capture the if I was safe or if the war would be back. ways local actors occupying specifi c BiH lo- She says my aunt and uncle are “worried cations negotiate variegated ideas of interna- for us.” Worried? I’m the one worried for tionality and Balkanism within specifi c spatial you, if you as Bosnians think that Bos- and temporal constellations (Jansen et al. 2016). nia is only corruption, war, and poverty! While in confl ict-embodying contexts such as (Emir, 28 y.o.) Mostar people distancing themselves from the “exoticizing” gaze of international experts, Sa- Although working with international agen- rajevo local residents (Sarajlije) tend to employ cies was viewed critically, it was also seen as part discourses on Balkanism in reshaping local of a broader social capital that, together with imaginaries between “natives” and “newcomers” study and travel, might foster the social mobility (dosljaci) in relation to pre-existing tensions of a new generation of Bosnians. Against fi xed between urban and rural populations (Bringa and pre-existing notions of Balkanism, young 1995). To draw on Nikola Petrović’s arguments people such as Elvira and Emir remind us of the (2011), societies subject to Balkanization may multiple ways in which both nationalist elites internalize and renegotiate this imaginary to and European centers can be critically ques- fuel their own internal demarcations and nego- tioned through everyday practices both within tiate their own identities. and beyond territorial Bosnia. Challenging a prescriptive view that would reduce BiH to its ethnic components, I found that local practices entailed fl uid forms of iden- Conclusion tifi cation in a “mature Dayton BiH” (Jansen et al. 2016) shaped by economic insecurity, social Moving beyond the normative post-confl ict lit- tensions, and competition over scarce resources erature that tends to crystalize Bosnian society (such as housing, work, and education). New in Dayton legal categories (Bougarel et al. 2007), terms, such as mafi ja, foteljasi associated with this article aims to provide further ethnographic political corruption and party clientelism, or insight into everyday encounters between locals lopovi to describe people who have benefi ted and internationals. from the confl ict, express a new, collective “moral On one hand, I have traced how some foreign order” that takes a critical stance on the struc- expatriates (stranci) discursively frame their tures of the state. In this setting in which poli- temporary stays in Bosnia, oft en shaped by a gap tika is an ethically debased universe, concepts between offi cial inclusionary rhetoric and their of (im)morality and (in)justice are not abstract daily practices of exclusion in relation to the ideological universes but the everyday experi- Bosnian state and society (Coles 2007). Applying ences of people who oft en bemoan the loss of the Todorova’s Balkanism framework, I have thus wellbeing and peace of socialist Yugoslavia (a argued that ideas of incomplete otherness within sentiment that also fuels local “Yugonostalgic” Europe tend to be refl ected in Western profes- movements). In this context, nationalist parties sionals’ ambivalent narratives and experiences play a key role not only in maintaining social in these countries. Along the way, dominant separatism, but also in seeding feelings of inse- discursive patterns around the liminal status of curity deep within Bosnian society (Bougarel et the Balkans (“the Other within Europe”) are dif- al. 2007). Moreover, the “intrusion” of kinship, ferently evoked and manipulated to de-politicize patronage, and personalized connections (such international interventions, rejecting the pre- as veze or štele) into state arenas gives rise to in- war experiences and space of transethnic narod equality in the distribution of welfare provisions Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 85 and social rights (Brković 2016). Consequently, 2017), which presents some Italian ethnographic while boundaries and social norms are fl uid research focused on Southeast Europe. I would and dynamic, they are sometimes experienced like to thank all of the other area scholars I as rather fi xed and infl exible by individuals and have met over the past few years at seminars groups dealing with the rigid ethnic categoriza- and conferences held at universities both in It- tion enforced by state institutions and society aly (Bergamo, Bologna, Lecce) and abroad (in (Visser and Bakker 2016). particular, Sussex and Maynooth) for their feed- Local–international encounters are thus a back on my research data, part of which I pres- privileged site for exploring the ambiguous re- ent here. I am also grateful to the NGO EducAid lations between the state and its citizens as part and the Municipality of Bologna for having in- of a perennial crisis of sovereignty that has been volved me in a number of development cooper- produced and normalized by development ef- ation projects in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I further forts (Pandolfi 2000). Perceived as an “illegit- thank the two anonymous peer reviewers for imate predator” (Bougarel et al. 2007) in local their rigorous feedback. narratives, the state is painted as an ambivalent and fragmented space that tends to push people to withdraw into private networks of trusted fel- lows and morally shared categories. Federica Tarabusi is Assistant Professor of Cul- At the same time, fi eldwork invites us to ap- tural Anthropology at the Department of Edu- proach the making of locals’ own Europeanness cation Studies (University of Bologna), where as a situationally embedded and contested pro- she directs the MA in International Coopera- cess. Against prepackaged notions of Europe tion and Educational Inclusion and sits on the and the Balkans, local employees of interna- scientifi c board of the research center on Mobil- tional agencies negotiate dynamic and multifac- ity Diversity and Social Inclusion (MODI). Her eted ideas of Europeanness to build on images research interests include: ethnography of aid in of social change and mobility across geographic Bosnia-Herzegovina; multicultural policies for and ideological frontiers (T. Petrović 2014). immigrants in Italy; ethnic discrimination and Beyond representations that would paint them gender inequalities; applied anthropology. as either victims of precarity or overprivileged ORCID: 0000–0002–8564–909X elites (Baker 2014; Koutková 2016), local young Email: [email protected] workers’ subjectivities shed light on the ways in which EU-related discourses and policies governing BiH can be disrupted through everyday Notes practices and counter-discourses that work pow- erfully against the ethnicization of social life, 1. Hereaft er BiH or Bosnia. corruption, and unemployment. 2. I use the terms “internationals” (stranci) and “locals” (lokalci) as emic categories of social identifi cation used in many international agen- Acknowledgments cies in Bosnia. Here, both “internationals” and “developers” are used to indicate professionals working in the complex constellation of agen- Th e arguments in this article build on a dis- cies channeling large amounts of international cussion launched in the book Antonio Maria development assistance. Th e second indicates Pusceddu and Zaira Tiziana Lofranco, eds., groups of Bosnian residents, variously posi- Oltre Adriatico e ritorno: Percorsi antropologici tioned in society, who are “local” in relation to tra Italia e Sudest Europa [Beyond the Adriatic the “development industry” or the non-local and back: Anthropological trajectories between staff members of the organizations they work Italy and Southeast Europe] (Milan: Meltemi, for. 86 | Federica Tarabusi

3. Interesting works on the knowledge practices of 13. Ljubica Spaskovska uses this expression to refer development professionals include: Coles 2007 to the need to frame Yugoslavian events in an and Mosse 2013. ordinary space-time dimension (2014). 4. See Sampson 2002. 14. Interestingly, Oane Visser and Marte Bakker 5. Against these dominant narratives, critical an- (2016) observe similar dynamics in the so- thropological perspectives argue that the well- cial practices of Sarajevo’s young, middle-class intentioned and morally rooted anti-nationalist adults who tend to center their lives around positions of most Western observers actually risk interethnic and international spaces. distorting the understanding of nationalist con- 15. In this dialogue that took place in the summer fl ict as a social phenomenon (Hayden 2007). of 2017, Elvira refers to the process of Bos- 6. Th is political neologism was coined by the EU nia applying for membership in the European to refer to Albania and the countries of the for- Union on 15 February 2016. mer Yugoslavia that entered the EU in 2013, ex- cept Slovenia and Croatia. 7. Stef Jansen et al. use this term as an imperfect translation of the term punoljetno (age of ma- References jority) to refer fi rst to a spatio-temporal constellation that must be distinguished from the Baker, Catherine. 2014. “Th e local workforce of post-confl ict era; and, second, to remind schol- international intervention in the Yugoslav suc- ars to take seriously the fact that the country’s cessor states: ‘Precariat’ or ‘projectariat’? Towards conditions have taken shape “in history” within an agenda for future research.” International a particular global historical conjuncture, as Peacekeeping 21 (1): 91–106. opposed to the kind of ahistorical and ethno- Bakić-Hayden, Milica. 1995. “Nesting orientalisms: centric visions that are widely projected onto Th e case of former Yugoslavia.” Slavic Review 54 non-Western countries (2016: 3). (4): 917–931. 8. As part of decentralized cooperation, the proj- Bougarel, Xavier, Elissa Helms, and Duijzings Ger, ect gave me the opportunity to explore how an eds. 2007. Th e new Bosnian mosaic: Identities, emerging populist ideological framework of memories and moral claims in a post-war society. development was concretely translated into aid London: Ashgate. practices (Tarabusi 2011). Bringa, Tone. 1995. Being muslim the Bosnian way: 9. Two projects, fi nanced by the Fondazione Cassa Identity and community in a central Bosnian di Risparmio di Bologna, were aimed at strength- village. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. ening the capacities and skills of offi cials from Brković, Carna. 2016. “Flexibility of Veze/Štele: Ne- the Municipality of Tuzla and other local actors gotiating social protection.” In Jansen, Brković, involved in promoting tourism and sustainable and Čelebičić, Negotiating social relations in development of the city. Bosnia and Herzegovina, 94–108. 10. In this well-known book, journalist Robert D. Chari, Sharad, and Katherine Verdery. 2009. Kaplan (1993) stages a tour of the Balkans to “Th inking between the posts: Postcolonialism, off er up a gallery of macabre scenarios featur- postsocialism, and ethnography aft er the Cold ing heroes and criminals, corrupt and cynical War.” Comparative Studies in Society and History politicians, gloomy villages, and nationalist pas- 51 (1): 6–34. sions; in other words, reassuring ethnocentrisms Coles, Kimberley. 2007. “Ambivalent builders: Eu- about these unknown regions in the heart of ropeanization, the production of diff erence and Europe. internationals in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” In Bou- 11. All personal names in this article are pseudo- garel, Helms, and Duijzings, Th e new Bosnian nyms. mosaic, 255–272. 12. Th e word štela is specifi cally used in BiH to refer Delpla, Isabelle. 2007. “In the midst of injustice: to people, practices, and relations involved in Th e ICTY from the perspective of some victim obtaining public or private resources through a associations.” In Bougarel, Helms, and Duijzings, personalized connection (see Brković 2016 and Th e new Bosnian mosaic, 211–234. Koutková 2016). Donia, Robert, and John Fine. 1994. Bosnia and Development, Balkanism, and new (im)moralities in postsocialist Bosnia-Herzegovina | 87

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