CAS SEE Seminars with Guests: Faris Koča on “ The Story of Baljvine, a warless village in Bosnia-Herzegovina” in conversation with the RECAS Fellow Valentina Otmačić.

In this talk, Faris Kočan will reflect upon the dynamics of interethnic relations in Baljvine, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where local Bosniaks and Serbs did not resort to interethnic violence that otherwise marked most of BiH during the last war. Drawing on structural factors that shed light on the dynamics of relations in post-conflict societies where interethnic violence occurred, the aim is to explain why and how bloodshed was prevented in Baljvine during the last war. To demonstrate how intersubjective motivations and a set of smaller coincidences in Baljvine affected structural factors and resulted in avoidance of interethnic violence, Kočan will discuss the concept of ”peace mosaic” – to show how several smaller pieces have to align in a community to allow it to remain peaceful.