070039 EX Field Trip - History of Bosnia-Hercegowina (2023S)

Aims
The course aims to historically contextualize important topics of the of transformation in Southeastern Europe on site, using the example of Bosnia-Herzegovina and even more specifically Sarajevo, and to elaborate the significance of the spatial rootedness of history.

Contents
The capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a stunningly beautiful and livable city, where at the same time the many political, environmental, economic and social conflicts fought in 20th century Europe have left their mark and shape the present society. The end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Dayton Agreement in 1995 opened a period of multiple transformations in the post-Yugoslav state. The end of the war and the collapse of the socialist economic system meant radical changes in the lives of the country's citizens. The experience of war and the social dislocations associated with it continued to have an impact, as did the ecological burdens emanating from the post-socialist industrial plants, or the social inequalities that originated in the predatory capitalist transformation of the Yugoslav variant of socialism into a capitalist economic order in which ethnonationalist corrupt elites enriched themselves at the expense of the general public. One could say that Bosnian-Herzegovinian society is living through conflicts in a temporally condensed form that are paradigmatic for the history of Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries. The excursion to Sarajevo wants to trace these conflicts on the spot and to find out at concrete places as well as in conversations what it means to be a post-war society and a post-socialist society that has to pass a multitude of transformation challenges at the same time.

Methods
To come up with these topics, we will deal with the political system on site and ask questions about the understanding of citizenship, which oscillates between political and ethnonational ideas not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will visit places where the fatal consequences of socialist and capitalist industrialization and de-industrialization processes become visible. We will follow the traces of war in the urban topography, but also in the experiences of its current inhabitants. However, not only the continuing effects of the war experiences, but also the memories of the time of Yugoslavian self-governing socialism will be addressed. We would like to talk to representatives of civil society initiatives that fight for the political and social participation of discriminated groups, for example for the realization of LGBTQI rights or for the participation of people with disabilities. We are also interested in how diverse migration processes shape Bosnian society, for example with regard to the diasporic communities of war refugees who have not returned or the exodus of Bosnian skilled workers (in the field of crafts or nursing staff) towards Western and Northern Europe. Finally, there is also the question of how the often cynical EU migration policy (with regard to the "Balkan route") is having an impact on the ground. Our excursion thus sets itself the goal of examining the interplay of historical experiences and current transformation challenges in contemporary Bosnian-Herzegovinian society, and of showing that European history is at stake here.
Students will develop and do research on the mentioned topics in advance of the excursion, which are then presented on site in Sarajevo and discussed with local experts (in English or German).