The Burden of Traumascapes: Discourses of Remembering in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Beyond

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Demonstrating the range of linguistic and semiotic practices which are deployed in the construction of war memory, The Burden of Traumascapes investigates the discourses of remembering that are enculturated in the everyday lives of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Maida Kosatica explores how the memory and narratives of the Bosnian War (1992-5) convey and renegotiate historical acts of violence in quite ordinary, banal ways and extend the war into the present day. Reintroducing the concept of 'traumascapes', this book demonstrates that semiotic landscapes are marked by traumatic legacies of violence in which the sense of trauma establishes its meaning through the discourses of remembering. In this context, this book argues that discourses of remembering, whether constructed in physical or virtual spaces, stem simultaneously from personal and collective needs to follow moral orders and responsibility, as well as from political, pedagogical and economic demands.

Reviews

The horror of war and its enduring legacy of pain, trauma, and antagonism are powerfully conveyed in this important book. Kosatica employs discourse analysis and sociolinguistic research tools to reveal the processes at work in a range of traumascapes. Through understanding how evil is perpetuated, we have a chance of challenging it. -- John Macalister, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
This sophisticated book is both an important and a difficult read. Tracing the fragile paths through graffiti, memorialisation, user-generated comments on-line, and sensitively conducted interviews, Kosatica forensically analyses the discourses of remembering in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, persuasively attending to all that this unfinished conflict can contribute to trauma studies and the wider field of semiosis in place. -- Robert Blackwood, University of Liverpool, UK

Author Bio

Maida Kosatica is a Junior Professor in Urban Semiotics and Semantics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.