Research Project
Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung im postjugoslawischen Kontext: die "Koalition für REKOM" — abgeschlossen
Transnationally dealing with the past in the post-Yugoslav context: The "Coalition for RECOM" — completed
Since around 2006, a civic cooperation throughout the former Yugoslavia has been dealing with the crimes committed during the wars of disintegrating Yugoslavia. By spring 2011, members of human rights organizations, associations of victims and veterans, of youth and media organizations as well as many individuals, artists and intellectuals for instance, have discussed instruments and mechanisms to cope with the wars in a regional dimension. As a result, they have set up a civic coalition to create a “Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about War Crimes and other Gross Violations of Human Rights committed on the Territory of the former Yugoslavia” (RECOM). The perennial consultations fostered cooperation in coping with the conflicts between people from different backgrounds. That’s why RECOM could be seen in contrast to the prevailing nationalist and ethno-political instrumentalization of the past in each of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The study aims at describing and understanding this specific form of coping with the past. More concretely, I am investigating how actually RECOM has developed, how concepts of dealing with the past are negotiated and how do ‘memory activists’ (Assmann/Conrad) make sense of being in (or leaving) RECOM. Eventually, the study provides empirically grounded findings about transnational practices of memory activists that are framed not only by global discourses on dealing with the past, but also by subjective interest.
Curriculum Vitae
Jacqueline Nießer was born in Staßfurt, a small town in the former “German Democratic Republic” which lies now in the very centre of Germany. After a European Volunteer Service in France, Jacqueline studied Cultural Studies with a focus on memory at the European University in Frankfurt (Oder) and in Wrocław (Poland). Following her diploma, she worked for several years as coordinator of projects on German-Polish relations and the integration of the Western Balkans into the European Union in Berlin. For her return to academia, Jacqueline received grants by the “Südosteuropa Gesellschaft e.V.”, the “Schroubek-Fond Östliches Europa” and the German Academic Exchange Service. This allowed her to strengthen her Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, to conduct several field trips to the region of post Yugoslavia and to develop the research design for her PhD project. Jacqueline has lived and researched in Bosnia-Herzegovina for about one year, before joining the Graduate School in Regensburg. She was research associate at the Leibniz-Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg.
Publications (selected)
Edited Books and Journal Issues
With Juliane Tomann (Hgg.): Angewandte Geschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit, Paderborn 2014.
Journal articles and book chapters
With Elisa Satjukow und Claudia Weber. Themenschwerpunkt „Südosteuropa ist tot? Lang lebe der Balkan! Positionierungen in einem interdisziplinären Forschungsfeld“. In: Südost-Forschungen. Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Kultur und Landeskunde Südosteuropas. Jg. 81, 2022 (darin: Nießer/ Satjukow/ Weber: Einleitung, 1-7, Nießer/ Satjukow: Reflections on Positionality in German Southeast European Studies, 34-56)
Der Krieg als gemeinsames Erbe – Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung nach dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens. In: "Religion und Gesellschaft in Ost und West" 4-5/2022, S. 18-21.
With Thomas Skowronek / Friederike Kind-Kovács / Ulf Brunnbauer: Cultural Opposition as Transnational Practice. In: Balázs Apor / Péter Apor / Sándor Horváth (Hgg.): The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and its Heritage in Eastern Europe, Budapest 2018, S. 551-571.
With Albert Bing / Josip Mihaljević: Yugoslavia. Different Shades of Red. In: Balázs Apor / Péter Apor / Sándor Horváth (Hgg.): The Handbook of COURAGE: Cultural Opposition and its Heritage in Eastern Europe, Budapest 2018, S. 97-116.
With Juliane Tomann: Public and Applied History in Germany. Just Another Brick in the Wall of the Academic Ivory Tower? In: The Public Historian, Vol. 40 No. 4, November 2018, S. 11-27. DOI: 10.1525/tph.2018.40.4.11.
With Juliane Tomann: On “Big Tents” and “Umbrellas”. In: The Public Historian, Vol 40 No. 4, November 2018, S. 61-63). DOI: 10.1525/tph.2018.40.4.61.
Which Commemorative Models Help? A Case Study from Post-Yugoslavia. In: Mischa Gabowitsch (Hg.): Replicating Atonement. Foreign Models in the Commemoration of Atrocities, Basingstoke 2017, S. 131-161 (e-book).
With Juliane Tomann: Die Ironie der Praxis. Angewandte Geschichte an der Oder. In: Dies. (Hgg.): Angewandte Geschichte. Neue Perspektiven auf Geschichte in der Öffentlichkeit, Paderborn 2014, S. 97-110.
With Juliane Tomann / Rafal Zytyniec: Angewandte Geschichte – Betrachtungen eines neuen Ansatzes aus deutscher und polnischer Perspektive. In: HISTORIE. Jahrbuch des Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 4: Deutsch-Polnische Beziehungsgeschichte, Berlin 2011, S. 268-283.
Further Publications
Review: Julianne Funk, Nancy Good and Marie E. Berry (2020). Healing and Peacebuilding after War. Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Comparative Southeast European Studies. 09/2023 Julianne Funk, Nancy Good and Marie E. Berry: Healing and Peacebuilding after War. Transforming Trauma in Bosnia and Herzegovina (degruyter.com)
After Reconciliation. On the Closure of the ICTY in The Hague. In: Erinnerungskulturen. Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 18.12.2017. URL: https://erinnerung.hypotheses.org/1640.
Istorija kao slon u sobi: Srpska laboratoria sećanja. In: Peščanik, 02.02.2017.
History as Elephant in the Room: Observations from Serbia’s Memory Lab. In: Erinnerungskulturen: Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 16.12.2016. URL: https://erinnerung.hypotheses.org/1038.
Der Kampf der Erinnerungen war gestern, oder wie sich Erinnerungskultur gegen den Strich denken lässt: In: Erinnerungskulturen. Erinnerung und Geschichtspolitik im östlichen und südöstlichen Europa, 29.04.2015. URL: https://erinnerung.hypotheses.org/55.
"Nemoj mi samo o miru i ljubavi!" Versöhnung als Tabu auf dem Gebiet des ehemaligen Jugoslawien? In: Kakanien Revisited, 2013.
With Juliane Tomann / Anna Littke / Jakob Ackermann / Felix Ackermann: Diskussion: Angewandte Geschichte: Ein neuer Ansatz? Version: 1.0. In: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 15.2.2011. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14765/zzf.dok.2.310.v1.
Presentations (selected)
2018
"Die Wahrheit der Anderen." Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung im postjugoslawischen Raum am Beispiel der REKOM Initiative, Kolloquium zur Ost- und Südosteuropäischen Geschichte, January 2018, Universität Leipzig
2015
A Truth Commission that dispenses with the Truth? The ‘Regional Commission for Establishing Facts on the Yugoslav Wars’, ASEEES Annual Convention, November 2015, Philadelphia, USA
"Kriegsverbrechen in Bosnien-Herzegowina: Ahndung und Aufarbeitung, Forum of the Graduate School for East and Southeat European Studies, June 2015, München
2014
"Coping as Crisis? Dealing with the Yugoslav wars through a regional approach", 7th InASEA Congress "Cultures of Crisis: Experiencing and Coping With Upheavals and Disasters in Southeast Europe", September 2014, Istanbul, Türkei
"Transnationale Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung im postjugoslawischen Kontext: Die Koalition für REKOM" (Projektvorstellung und Diskussion der Zwischenergebnisse), research colloquium "Neue Perspektiven in der südost- und osteuropäischen Geschichte", January 2014, Regensburg
2012
“The dilemma about reconciliation” – Investigating a transnational approach to dealing with the past in postjugoslav societies (RECOM), Workshop organized by the network "Media and Memoria in South-Eastern Europe", May 2012, Supetar, Island of Brac (Croatia)
2011
"The journey is its own reward. The Coalition for REKOM”, 'Zukunftswerkstatt' „Erinnerungen, Narrationen und Identitäten: Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft in Ex-Jugoslawien“, organized by the Goethe-Institut, September 2011, Regensburg
"Einflüsse von Ansätzen der Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung aus anderen Ländern bei der regionalen Wahrheitskommission auf dem Westbalkan", PhD Workshop “Regionale Geschichte in einer transnationalen Welt”, July 2011, Regensburg
"The German Reference in Creating a Regional Truth Commission in Post-Yugoslavia", International conferenc "Translating Atonement: Can Countries learn from each other?", organized by Einstein Forum and the Hamburg Institute for Social Research June 2011, Potsdam
2010
"Between Globalization and Europeanization: Dealing with the past in Post-Yugoslavia", summer school organized by the German Historical Institute Paris, RICHIE and the University Paris IV-Sorbonne "Towards a European Society? Convergence and Divergence in 20th Century Europe", July 2010, Andé, France
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