Name and Surname
Valentina Otmačić
Affiliation
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Rijeka
E-mail Address
valentina.otmacic@uniri.hr
Short Biography
Valentina Otmačić is a researcher and practitioner in the fields of peace, conflict transformation and human rights. She received her PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford (UK), with a thesis titled “Resisting division along ethnic lines: a case study of two communities who challenged discourses of war during the Yugoslav conflict 1991-1995”. Her main research interests are in the areas of resistance to violence and constructive conflict transformation. She has published several book chapters and articles on these topics. She is currently undertaking research on resistance to identity-based violence and segregation in Northern Ireland.
As a practitioner, she worked with several UN Agencies and international NGOs supporting war-affected civilians in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tanzania, Burundi, DR Congo, Lebanon and Colombia. She is also an expert in strategic advocacy and a trainer in conflict transformation. Her resource book “Conflict as a challenge: enhancing children’s capacities of constructive conflict transformation” was published in Lebanon by Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts.
Research Abstract
Memory of Good Things: Mobilizing Legacies of Inter-Ethnic Solidarity and Collaboration to Support Culture of Shared Future
The official narratives of the past in the countries ensuing from former Yugoslavia are almost exclusively focusing on violence. Providing simplified accounts of “our heroes/victims” and “their villains”, these narratives strongly contribute to the persistence of ethnonationalist agendas and deepening of inter-ethnic cleavages in the region. At the same time, lived experiences of collaboration, friendship and joint achievements of members of different ethnic groups from former Yugoslavia, although plentiful, seem to be ignored and exposed to “deliberate forgetting”.
Both negative and positive memories can be activated to promote specific political and social agendas. However, while mechanisms for deploying negative memories of inter-group hostilities to mobilize people for (more) violence have been studied extensively, there is a gap in the knowledge on the activation of positive collective memories to support nonviolent political agendas.
The main aim of the study Memory of Good Things is to explore in what ways can positive inter-ethnic experiences and related good memories of joint past be strategically mobilized to support a culture of shared future. To address this research question, I will firstly facilitate learning about the strategic use of positive past in the practices of three ethnically diverse communities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina which resisted ethnic segregation and violence during 1991-1995 wars. Secondly, I will examine the current state of the integration of such positive narratives in the public memory at local and national level. Finally, I aim to identify and outline the opportunities for strategic deployment of positive inter-ethnic past to build a shared future in Southeastern Europe envisioned as a region where, as expressed by the wartime mayor of the city of Tuzla Selim Bešlagić, “national, political and religious differences among citizens are not considered a curse, but a source of beauty and wealth”.