Reclaiming erased lives: archives, records and memories in post-war Bosnia and the Bosnian diaspora
In this paper, based on conventional and digital ethnography, I first identify three dominant research areas relating to the issues of destruction, use and abuse of archives and records in post-war Bosnia, and discuss their legal, political and ethical dimensions. I then go on to present two ethnographies describing how survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and in the Bosnian refugee diaspora perceive, experience and deal with missing personal records and material evidence of their histories, as well as how they (re)create their own archives and memories, and in the process reassert their erased identities in both real and cyber space. This paper also describes how contemporary technologiesincluding biomedical technology and information and communication technologyimpact the reconstruction of individual and collective identities in shattered Bosnian families and communities in the aftermath of genocide. The ethnographies described point to the novel contributionthat these technologies have made to re-humanising both those who perished and the survivors of the war in Bosnia.
archives bosnia diaspora genocide dna cyber villages