„These are landscapes that have not healed with the passing of time, where the stakes of traumatic memory remain contested and the legacy of what happened there continues to impact in the present“
Dear Balkan.Perspectives Readers,
In the Western Balkans, following the violent conflicts of the 1990s and early 2000s, trauma and violence have inscribed themselves in a multitude of societal realms. Various Balkan.Perspectives editions have discussed the political, social, and cultural implications and the need to continuously and critically reflect on how the past conflicts have impacted the societies in the countries of former Yugoslavia.
The current Balkan.Perspectives edition seeks to add another notion to these discussions. The Balkan.Perspectives #17 “Violence Taking Place – Trauma and War in Architecture and Public Spaces” is a critical reflection on how trauma, war, and violence have shaped the immediate environment, the buildings and places we live in, thus establishing trauma as part of our everyday life, contributing to a glorification of violence and ethno-nationalistic discourses. The destruction of specific buildings and monuments, cultural heritage sites or public infrastructure was a strategy during the violent conflicts in the region. Researchers have coined terms such as “urbicide”, “warscapes”, “memoricide” or “warchitecture” to describe this phenomenon. These terms emphasize that cities were not only the physical sites of fighting, “but architecture and urban space have also been adapted as military weaponry”.
Read more here