"Mine, yours, ours, no one’s" : ethnonational contestation and heritagization on the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s National Museum and Museum of Republika Srpska

Ivaniš, Iris (author), Kočan, Faris (author), Zupančič, Rok (author)

This article aims to illustrate how heritagization, together with contested cultural heritage, impact the role of national museums relating to specific ethnic identity groups within ethnically divided countries. Through the elements of competing historical ethnonationalist narratives, negation of a civic identity, and legitimization of an imagined ethnic state, the article compares two museums in one country – the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Museum of Republika Srpska, highlighting the effects of ethnonationalist contestation of cultural heritage and heritagization in a state with weak central control. Findings show that in such settings, national museums with a state-level character become vessels of contested cultural heritage, while museums aimed at strengthening exclusivist ethnic identities gain importance and with that, the status of important sociocultural actors in their respective groups.

• Language: English
• Keywords: cultural heritage, ethnic identity, museums, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 255–275
• Numbering: Vol. 31, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-169329
• UDC: 323.1(497.6)
• ISSN on article: 1557-2986
• DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2025.2465205
• COBISS.SI-ID: 227935747
• Publication date in RUL: 23.05.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Nationalism and ethnic politics
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1557-2986
• COBISS.SI-ID: 521643801

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: kulturna dediščina, etnična pripadnost, muzeji, Bosna in Hercegovina