Jovana MIHAJLOVIĆ TRBOVC

While official political representatives use hegemonic power to create public memories and promote particular historical interpretations (e.g. through public commemorations and official holidays), there are grassroots memory-making initiatives that promote alternative historical narratives. This project sheds additional light on this under-researched topic. Differently from intimate, private and family memories, public memory-making takes place in public space and infuses it with meanings. Through acts of “public remembering”, those who remember are also expressing their claims on public space and its reinterpretation. Therefore, public memory-making is always simultaneously a process of placemaking.

This research project intends to examine civil-society based and grassroots mnemonic agents, and to analyse their initiatives, not only in order to discuss the “adequate” interpretation of the past, but also as an intervention into public space, as a social and democratic innovation in its own right. Particularly, the project will focus on “alternative” mnemonic agents who organise “alternative” commemorations in public spaces (e.g. a city square) across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH).