Conflicting frames of reconciliation: the politics of peacebuilding in the Balkans.

In order to rebuild peace successfully in a society that has been ravaged by (ethnic) conflict, it is commonly understood that the former warring parties should reconcile or engage in practices of reconciliation. However, it is not always clear what reconciliation precisely entails, and definitions of the concept often vary or remain vague. Some authors have tried to remedy this by proposing more concrete definitions or new ideal models of reconciliation. This project moves beyond this theoretical discussion by examining the practice of reconciliation and more precisely the definitions and frames of reconciliation used by practitioners in the field. We study the case of the former Yugoslavia, where a group of NGOs is currently working together to press politicians to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (the RECOM initiative). This project investigates the ways in which three sets of actors (civil society at large, RECOM, and political elites) in three countries (Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) frame reconciliation. Our aim is to unearth the different meanings actors attribute to reconciliation and the tensions this ‘politics of signification’ causes in the relationships between them. Rather than seeing reconciliation simply as something that is either present or not, we open up the ‘black box’ of reconciliation and gain an understanding of the discursive and dynamic processes leading to changing interaction patterns between (former) adversaries.