“Sow hunger, reap anger“. Grassroots protests and new collective identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina

29 April 2015, 4-6 pm
Heinrich Böll Foundation
Żurawia 45, Warsaw

It is our pleasure to invite you to the second discussion held as part of the project "The Politics of Protest. Understanding political protest in Central Europe" organized by the Warsaw office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in partnership with the Collegium Civitas university. Our esteemed guest - Chiara Milan - will focus on grassroots protests and new collective identities in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Between 2013 and 2014 Bosnia-Herzegovina witnessed the first mass protests since the end of the 1992-95 war. In June 2013 the failure of the national parliament to solve a deadlock in the disbursement of national ID numbers spawned protests in the main urban centers of the country, lasting for over a month. In February 2014, the violent reaction of the police to a demonstration organized by the unemployed workers of the privatized factories in the former industrial hub of Tuzla sparked solidarity rallies all over the country. The talk provides an overview of the 2013-2014 Bosnian unrest, analysing the roots of its emergence, the social composition and forms of organization, with a specific focus on the self-organized platforms for the articulation of citizens’ demands called “plenums”, as well as the achievements and shortcomings of such a form of civic resistance.

Information: mateusz.falkowski@gmail.com
RSVP: pl-info@pl.boell.org

Chiara Milan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the European University Institute (EUI), and Research Associate at the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. She is conducting research on 2013 and 2014 social mobilization in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the framework of the ERC-funded project “Mobilizing for Democracy”.