Masculinity and male survivors of wartime sexual violence: a Bosnian case study

While conflict-related sexual violence affects men and women, male survivors are often overlooked or marginalised. The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is a poignant example. Twenty-two years after the Bosnian war ended, little attention has been given to the men who suffered diverse forms of sexual violence during the conflict. The present article contributes to addressing this gap. Based on semi-structured interviews with 10 men who endured the horrors of the ?elopek camp in north-east BiH, it focuses on the lives of these men today. Exploring the men’s silences and the intersection of their trauma with ongoing everyday problems, it goes beyond the commonly made argument that sexual violence against men constitutes an attack on masculinity. Fundamentally, it examines how masculinity norms and expectations have shaped the men’s stories, coping strategies, and current needs. This use of a masculinity lens highlights important gaps within transitional justice, which to date has narrowly focused on violent and militarised forms of masculinity. The article thus calls for transitional justice processes to give more attention to masculinities affected by violence.     

The Place of Memory in Understanding Urban Change in Central Asia: The Cities of Bishkek and Ferghana

This article explores the relationship between memory and place in understandings of urban change in Central Asia. Drawing on narratives of long-term residents of two Central Asian cities we investigate the ways in which positive memories of the Soviet past emerge when people speak about the urban environment of today. We explore why such fondness for the Soviet past has emerged, what elements of the past are most cherished, and which urban communities remember these elements. We ask what these forms of memory reveal about what has been lost and what this tells us about the present anxieties of urban residents.     

The invisible/visible claims to justice: sexual violence and the university camp(us)

If the relationship between international tribunals and reconciliation remains empirically under‐researched within the transitional justice literature, this is even truer in respect of hybrid and local courts. Seeking to address this gap, the purpose of this article is to explore whether the State Court of Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) – and more particularly its War Crimes Chamber (WCC) – can contribute to reconciliation in BiH. Unlike the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the State Court is located in the country itself. Hence, in theory at least, it has greater potential to involve local people and thus to facilitate the reconciliation process. In practice, however, the Court faces many of the same problems as the ICTY, including perceptions of bias and the difficulty of satisfying victims. What this ultimately demonstrates is that criminal trials are not a panacea or “magic bullet” and that reconciliation – both in BiH and in post‐conflict societies more generally – requires a comprehensive and holistic approach to transitional justice that does not over‐rely upon the administration of retributive justice. The State Court, therefore, is merely one potential path to reconciliation.     

Riot Grrrl Manifestos and Radical Vernacular Feminism

This essay argues that Riot Grrrl manifestos were instrumental in promulgating a form of radical feminism that demonstrates the enduring nature of feminist radicalism. While a great deal of important work has been written on the movement, little attention has been paid to how these manifestos developed a distinctive political language and culture. By foregrounding the volatility of feminine youth and the historical erasure of the girl subject as a radical political agent, Riot Grrrl manifestos redefined the gendered (and ageist) exclusionary practices of the radical public sphere, promoting unified forms of resistance, often symbolised as a personal, albeit contagious, awakening to the realities of harassment, repression, violence and ridicule. This kind of molecular, contingent politics worked to exploit the contradictions inherent in young women's lives rather than to overcome the differences that had splintered more congealed formations of feminist politics. In rejecting the traditional claims of the radical public sphere, Riot Grrl manifestos insist on a vernacular feminism that strategically emphasises micropolitical action over grand narratives of resistance and revolution. While these manifestos draw on aspects of second-wave radical feminism and older forms of avant-garde culture, they push the genre of the manifesto into new territory by stressing everyday forms of resistance, defining their imagined consistency as porous and reactive rather than exclusive or over-determined.     

The Role of Foreign Direct Investment and State Capture in Shaping Innovation Outcome in Russia

This article explores the linkage between foreign direct investment, grand corruption (that is, state capture) and innovation in Russia's regions in between 1997 and 2010. The results indicate that during the period under investigation both foreign direct investment and state capture were the significant determinants of innovation outcome. What is also interesting is that a positive impact of state capture on innovation through foreign firms, and a negative impact—through exporting—was observed.     

Helping or harming? NGOs and victims/-survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Drawing on the author's previous and current fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) and interactions with several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), this article asks whether some organizations that seek to help and support victims/-survivors of conflict-related sexual violence are potentially doing more harm than good. In developing this argument, the article's aim is neither to unjustly criticize NGOs nor to trivialize the challenges that victims/-survivors face. What it seeks to demonstrate, however, is that a heavy focus on the thematic of trauma can be counter-productive. Specifically, it critiques trauma as a disempowering, essentializing and collectivizing discourse. Calling for a meta discursive shift away from trauma and towards resilience, it argues that NGOs should give more attention to the families and communities of victims/-survivors. Families and communities, in this regard, constitute potential resilience resources that should be harnessed and strengthened.     

Giving Peace a Chance: Croatia's Branitelji and the Imperative of Reintegration

This article focuses on ex-combatants (branitelji) in the town of Vukovar. It argues that while veterans currently present an obstacle to inter-ethnic reconciliation, this need not be the case; they can potentially play an important role as peace builders. As a first step, however, they need to be reintegrated into society, and to a large extent this has not yet happened. The purpose of this article is thus to reflect on possible ways of advancing the reintegration process, focusing on the core themes of identity and trauma.