Cooking and Dining in Times of War and Peace : Theorising Armed Conflict and Post-war Development in Srebrenica, BiH in the Framework of Anthropology of Food
Abstract
In the last 1990's war Srebrenica, BiH became an isolated enclave under siege, that was later declared the UN 'Safe Area'. Despite its protected status, in July, 1995 this Eastern-Bosnian city became a site event classified by the ICTY as genocide and is regarded as the second worse mass atrocity in Europe after the WW2.
In this presentation, I take a look at these events from a non-traditional perspective-the one of food. Genocide (unlike massacre) is a systematic intentional act to destroy targeted group of people that takes course in several identifiable phases and features a certain characteristic internal logic (see Zwaan, 2003).
I suggest that the "food perspective" is helpful to illustrate these different phases and features and is, thus, useful to understand and map Srebrenica genocide. Food has played a central role within human society from time immemorial.
It supplies nutrients necessary to preserve functions of human organism and thus assures survival (see Counihan 1999, Farquar 2006, Lupton 1996). Moreover, edibles can 'tell' many stories about social cohesion or exclusion and both collective and individual identity.
Yet, what happens to relation between social actor and "everyday bread" under conditions of starvation and overall material scarcity? The aim of this presentation is to unfold discussion regarding these issues in comparison with my ethnographic data from fieldwork in Srebrenica and on the example of war and post-war diet show that food can function also as an effective tool of social oppression and violence.