Paper short abstract:

The presentation traces the production and release of the 2011 feature film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, which faced heavy criticism from certain local survivor-activists for its perceived usurpation and distortion of the accepted and value-laden rape victim identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Paper long abstract:

The status of war rape 'victim' has become increasingly politicised in the almost two decades since sexual violence was formally recognised as a war crime and a crime against humanity. Attention paid to the phenomena has been unprecedented during that period, paralleled in part by the resources invested into post-conflict societies for victim support, rehabilitation, welfare, and judicial development. A consequence of such attention has been the development of a dominant victim identity and meta-narrative that typically represents women survivors as traditional, culture-bound, and passive. The identity has been adopted, embodied, reproduced, and eventually 'owned' by certain survivor-activists as a strategy to access increasingly limited resources, and build local-level authority in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The presentation traces the production and release of the 2011 feature film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, which faced heavy criticism for its perceived usurpation and distortion of the value-laden rape victim identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The film follows the relationship between a Bosnian Serb man and Bosnian Muslim woman whose connections to one another become increasingly complicated by the onset of war. The initial hostile reception from certain local rape survivors towards writer and director Angelina Jolie, and her eventual acceptance as a courageous advocate reflect the politics of ownership where the status of 'rape victim' is concerned. The production of the film, and the rumours and gossip that circulated about the original script were experienced by some as a threat to local control of the accepted 'storyline' of wartime rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina.