Abstract
By using concepts of biopolitics and governmentality, previous chapters grounded Bosnian post-refugee transnationalism between racial states of Ireland and Bosnia. They argued that this backdrop explains enforced nature of Bosnian post-refugee transnationalism. This last chapter takes a step back from discussions of the biopolitical regimes of governmentality of both states and focuses instead on the transnational space that Bosnians have attained for themselves in reaction to those regimes. This chapter looks into the summer migrations and diasporic affiliations and interconnections that Bosnians are presently engaged in and argues that it is within these associations and interconnections that they are developing post-refugee transnationalism. The chapter theorises their post-refugee transnational experiences as a space of possibility and grey zone of potentiality.
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Notes
- 1.
The Refugee Agency itself noticed that often, despite wanting to stay in Ireland, Bosnian refugees were ‘holding out the prospect of one day returning to Bosnia’ (Refugee Agency 1998: 14).
- 2.
No parent I spoke to said that they would take their children out of school in Ireland and return to Bosnia.
- 3.
A number of Bosnians would be in receipt of welfare in Ireland and therefore are working.
- 4.
All annual reports produced by Bosnian Community Development Project were written in the English language. I did not fix grammatical mistakes, which sometimes occurred, in the reports.
- 5.
Other smaller scale activities were noted, such as the notification of diplomas gained abroad, the production of textbooks for Bosnian supplementary schools and the organisation of TV programmes and international editions of newspapers that target the diaspora (https://bosanskadijaspora.com/, 05.02.2010).
- 6.
Consequently, the Bosnian American Diaspora did contribute to the Association and participated in the Days of Diaspora conference.
- 7.
Korzo translates as a promenade. Each town would have at least one traffic-free street where people can go for evening walks.
- 8.
In her critique of ‘refugee returnee’ as a clear cut category with regard to Bosnian refugees, Eastmond proposes two, not mutually exclusive, strategies of ‘open-ended return’. In the first category, individuals and households return to live in the country of origin, but maintain strong links with the asylum country, hence becoming ‘transnationals at home’. The second category is comprised of those who return regularly to Bosnia, but keep their asylum country as a permanent base (2006). The Bosnians this book concerns with belong mostly to the second category of open-ended return.
- 9.
This information was given to us at the ‘Days of Diaspora’ conference.
- 10.
Nadrealisti, translated as Surrealists, was a very popular comedy show that started in Sarajevo in the 1980s and went on until 1991. The shows were based on political satire or humour related to the mentality of people from former Yugoslavia.
- 11.
This is particularly unusual considering the fact that the times of conflict are discussed.
- 12.
My own translation.
- 13.
Zeljko Komsic is a Bosnian politician who, at the time, served as a Croat member of the Bosnian presidential cabinet.
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Halilovic-Pastuovic, M. (2020). Bosnian Post-Refugee Transnationalism as the Space of Possibility. In: Bosnian Post-Refugee Transnationalism. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39564-3_5
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