Conversations in Conflict Studies

Azra Hromadžić, associate professor of anthropology, will present “Riverine
Citizenship: A Bosnian City in Love with the River.”

Water potential is a significant natural wealth of most parts of the Balkans which gave rise to a surge in hydropower investments unparalleled across Europe. As part of these processes, a dam was planned to be built on the Una River which runs through the Bosnian city of Bihać. This alarmed the city’s residents, culminating in a protest in 2015.

My talk begins with this protest, and it explores how the threat of dam construction transformed the seemingly apolitical love of the river into a powerful political force around which thousands of people mobilized: riverine citizenship.