Aleksandra Djurasovic – författare

The book Challenging the Representation of Ethnically Divided Cities: Perspectives from Mostar questions the existing overrepresentation of Mostar as an ethnically ‘divided city’. While acknowledging the existence of internal borders, the chapters in this book assert that they are not solid nor fixed and, by exploring how they become material or immaterial, the book offers a deeper understanding of the city’s complex dynamics. Accordingly, the chapters in this book are attentive to how ethnic divides materialise or lose importance because of socio-political contingencies. Events, groups and spaces that promote reconciliation from the bottom-up are examined, not necessarily to assess their success and failures but rather to look at how they create networks, gain trust and form platforms that generate novel understandings of ethnic loyalties and party memberships.

Further, and drawing both on the empirical data and theoretical reflections, this volume contributes to broader debates about ‘divided cities’ by suggesting the need to engage with these cities in their complexities rather than reducing them to their ethno-national divisions. The book engages with socio-political and economic complexities in order to shed light on how ethnic conflicts and resulting spatial partitioning are often just the surface of much more complex dynamics that are far less easy to disentangle and represent.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Space and Polity.

The book Challenging the Representation of Ethnically Divided Cities: Perspectives from Mostar questions the existing overrepresentation of Mostar as an ethnically ‘divided city’. While acknowledging the existence of internal borders, the chapters in this book assert that they are not solid nor fixed and, by exploring how they become material or immaterial, the book offers a deeper understanding of the city’s complex dynamics. Accordingly, the chapters in this book are attentive to how ethnic divides materialise or lose importance because of socio-political contingencies. Events, groups and spaces that promote reconciliation from the bottom-up are examined, not necessarily to assess their success and failures but rather to look at how they create networks, gain trust and form platforms that generate novel understandings of ethnic loyalties and party memberships.

Further, and drawing both on the empirical data and theoretical reflections, this volume contributes to broader debates about ‘divided cities’ by suggesting the need to engage with these cities in their complexities rather than reducing them to their ethno-national divisions. The book engages with socio-political and economic complexities in order to shed light on how ethnic conflicts and resulting spatial partitioning are often just the surface of much more complex dynamics that are far less easy to disentangle and represent.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Space and Polity.

Recent history has seen Bosnian and Herzegovinian (BiH) cities undergoing several transitions. Their cities have developed under socialism (1945 – 1992), have suffered through the civil war during the 1990s, and during the last twenty years have been undergoing a slow and multifaceted transition to an indeterminate end point.

Focusing on the post-socialist, postwar, and neoliberal transitions experienced in BiH, the book shows that planning systems deviated from control-oriented and top-down regulation to flexible approaches for more open for informal development. The book analyzes several levels of planning-related processes: the former Yugoslavia, BiH, the city of Mostar, and three urban zones (the Industrial Zone Bišće Polje, the City Zone Rondo, and the Historic District and the Old Town Zone) in order to offer insights into the new planning systems in the late phase of post-socialist transition.

Recent history has seen Bosnian and Herzegovinian (BiH) cities undergoing several transitions. Their cities have developed under socialism (1945 – 1992), have suffered through the civil war during the 1990s, and during the last twenty years have been undergoing a slow and multifaceted transition to an indeterminate end point.

Focusing on the post-socialist, postwar, and neoliberal transitions experienced in BiH, the book shows that planning systems deviated from control-oriented and top-down regulation to flexible approaches for more open for informal development. The book analyzes several levels of planning-related processes: the former Yugoslavia, BiH, the city of Mostar, and three urban zones (the Industrial Zone Bišće Polje, the City Zone Rondo, and the Historic District and the Old Town Zone) in order to offer insights into the new planning systems in the late phase of post-socialist transition.