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Lookup NU author(s): Dr James RidingORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Sage Publications Ltd, 2020.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
The March of Peace (Marš Mira) is a 63-mile, three-day walk through eastern Bosnia organised in memory of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide and traces in reverse a death march. Marchers take a trail from Nezuk stopping at mass graves found along the way, arriving at the memorial cemetery in Potočari a day prior to the annual mass funeral for victims who have been recently exhumed. This paper charts the journey from death march to peace march and asks the reader to assess the efficacy of embodied memory-work and the ethical responsibility to undertake – and responsibilities when undertaking – alternative memory-work in post-genocide landscapes and sites of mass murder, through a series of rhetorical shifts. A number of frames are enacted to challenge other more linear and conventional approaches, allowing the sociological and political productivity of engaging with post-genocide landscapes in a post-conflict state to emerge, referencing dissident forms of remembrance through the method of walking-with others while traversing this post-genocide landscape on foot. Travelling-with around 8000 mourners, some of whom were survivors of the death march, the aim here is not to simply describe what is taking place, rather the journey is undertaken in order to activate a space. A space within which I might engage with issues of landscape, conflict and memory in the context of their current discussion within cultural and political geography, genocide studies and memory studies, and more importantly to speak of genocide and a post-genocide landscape.
Author(s): Riding J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Cultural Geographies
Year: 2020
Volume: 27
Issue: 2
Pages: 237-259
Print publication date: 01/04/2020
Online publication date: 17/10/2019
Acceptance date: 19/08/2019
Date deposited: 27/09/2019
ISSN (print): 1474-4740
ISSN (electronic): 1477-0881
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474019876619
DOI: 10.1177/1474474019876619
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