Paper short abstract:

When Sarajevo was besieged by Bosnian Serb forces, Serbs inside the city became suspected of collusion, and faced violent retribution. This paper explores wartime complicity through the prism of neighbourly relations, analyzing how the boundaries of moral communities are redrawn in times of war.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores wartime complicity through the prism of neighbourly relations inside besieged Sarajevo. From 1992 to 1995, the city was held under siege by Bosnian Serb forces. For Serb civilians inside the city, their ethnic association with the besieging army made them suspect as potential traitors, and rendered them vulnerable to retribution, in what I conceptualize as the siege’s hidden “internal zone” of violence. Based on one year of fieldwork (2017 to 2018) with Bosnian Serb women, I describe their social decline from “neighbours” to “aggressors” inside the siege. I trace how the moral contract of komšiluk (neighbourliness), understood as a lived responsibility for one another, bent under the weight of war.As numerous Serb women emphasized, “it mattered who your neighbours were.” Neighbours could insulate you, vouch for you, protect you. But they could also betray you, accuse you, endanger you. Complicity thus shot in multiple directions, as those who accused their Serb neighbours of collusion themselves became complicit in new cycles of retributive violence. This paper demonstrates how the boundaries of moral communities are redrawn in wartime, as the answer to the question, “What do we owe each other?” is re-opened and re-negotiated. It also shines a light on instances of care and cooperation among neighbours who refused to let themselves be divided along ethnic lines, and who in their cooperation made the siege more bearable for one another.