Description: The fall of the United Nations "safe area" of Srebrenica in July 1995 to Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces stands out as the international community's most egregious failure to intervene during the Bosnian war. It led to genocide, forced displacement, and a legacy of loss. But wartime inaction has since spurred numerous postwar attempts to address the atrocities' effects on Bosnian society and its diaspora. Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide reveals how interactions between local, national, and international interventions - from refugee return and resettlement to commemorations, war crimes trials, immigration proceedings, and election reform - have led to subtle, positive effects of social repair, despite persistent attempts at denial. Using an interdisciplinary approach, diverse research methods, and more than a decade of fieldwork in five countries, Lara J. Nettelfield and Sarah E. Wagner trace the genocide's reverberations in Bosnia and abroad. The findings of this study have implications for research on post-conflict societies around the world.
Brief description: Lara J. Nettelfield is a Lecturer in International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of Courting Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Hague Tribunal's Impact in a Postwar State (Cambridge University Press, 2010), winner of the 2011 Marshall Shulman Book Prize of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Prior to joining Royal Holloway, she taught at the University of Exeter, Columbia University and the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals. She received PhD, MPhil and MA degrees in political science from Columbia University, a certificate from Columbia's Harriman Institute, and an AB from the University of California, Berkeley.
Review Quotes: 'Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide is a major contribution to how the memory of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 is understood, and thus how genocide and war crimes alter society. ... a deeply researched and superbly written account of suffering and resistance in the face of destructive, anti-human forces.' Paul R. Bartrop, Holocaust and Genocide Studies