(Image on main blog page: Vedran Smailović playing in the partially destroyed National Library in Sarajevo in 1992. By Mikhail Evstafiev. Source.)
Recently, I spent a class discussing the 1990s wars in the Balkans. This got me reading up on peacebuilding.
Ongoing criticism in the field argues that liberal models of peacebuilding and civil society reject local avenues of peacebuilding—especially when it comes to cultural stuff.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, research has found that only “libero-normative” cultural projects (e.g., human rights training) get EU peacebuilding funding (Daieff 2017). Meanwhile…while local cultural organizations (e.g., choirs and football clubs) have significant potential to contribute to building lasting peace, they don’t get funding.
Why? The research claims that’s because they don’t use Western civil society activities like conferences and workshops 🙄 (Kappler & Richmond 2011).
So, what’s the meaning of ‘We don’t do choirs and football clubs’? The refrain is from Bosnia and Herzegovina—it’s a sarcastic mocking of the Western one-size-fits-all peacebuilding framework. More generally (of course), I like to think of it as a statement of resistance—a refusal to conform and acquiesce to hegemonic forces.
(Left: ‘We don’t do choirs and football clubs’ 20″ x 20″ x 1.5″)