Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/doi.org/10.52328/t.9.1.3
“We are staying”: Youth Approaches to Anti-Nationalist Action and Memory in the Bosnian Town of Tuzla
Mila Dragojević
; Sewanee: The University of the South, SAD
Valentina Otmačić
; Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Rijeka
Abstract
Through the prism of youth activism in the city of Tuzla, an exception in the region because of the continued peaceful co-existence between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs throughout the war and in the aftermath, the authors ask the following questions: What are the key characteristics of the local politics of remembrance in the city of Tuzla? How do they differ from the dominant memory politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina? What are the key perspectives of young people in Tuzla – of those born after the war, particularly of youth activists – on the wartime past and the ways it is being integrated into their present and future by different agents of memory? Based
on the interviews of nine youth activists and participant observation of the 30th anniversary commemorating the Kapija massacre, the authors find that the youth perspectives in Tuzla are not only anti-nationalist, but also linked across ethno-national lines, both locally and regionally, with other youth activists concerned for shared urgent issues, such as the promotion of the rule of law, democratic governance, gender equity, and environmental protection.
Keywords
youth activism; memory politics; civil society; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Tuzla
Hrčak ID:
347383
URI
Publication date:
25.5.2026.
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