The Rape Hotel: Women's memories of the Bosnian War (1992-1995)

During the Bosnian War (1992-1995), acts of extreme violence
were committed against women. This interdisciplinary feminist
project, bridging Social Geography and International Relations,
investigates lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) to ask how
women have been represented in the collective memoryscape
across Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Using participatory
methods, it critically explores the gendered remembrance
trajectories of these spaces of memory, by walking-with and
creating-with women involved in fighting for justice for women
in BiH. Through walking-interviews and photo-voice, the
research will gather women's testimonies of conflict, thereby
contributing more intimate memories and lieux de mémoire to
the gendered monumental memoryscape of post-conflict BiH.
The research also aims to reveal the ongoing challenges
women face in post-conflict BiH. This interdisciplinary project
seeks to integrate epistemological approaches from feminist
International Relations and feminist Social Geography. In so
doing, it seeks to develop new ground-up conceptualizations of
trauma- and memoryscapes in BiH; to develop a novel
methodology alongside survivors; and to explore the extent
which women's stories have been alternately remembered and
forgotten, martyred and militarised, simplified and
misrepresented, within the collective memory of the Bosnian
War. The research will result in a high quality PhD thesis, a
number of original articles in international journals, and a
photovoice exhibition at the Sarajevo Post-Conflict Research
Centre.