Post-War Settlements and the Production of New Illegalities: The Case of Dayton and People Trafficking

Citation:

Dawson, Andrew. 2008. “Post-War Settlements and the Production of New Illegalities: The Case of Dayton and People Trafficking and Prostitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Dialect Anthropology 32: 123-37.

Author: Andrew Dawson

Abstract:

This article charts the rise of people smuggling, trafficking and prostitution in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, and also goes on to point to their transformation in the post-post-war era into ‘cottage’ industries. I argue that the conditions of possibility for their existence are rooted in contradictions inherent in the Dayton Peace Agreement that brought to an end the war of Yugoslav succession. In particular, borrowing Auge’s concept of non-places, I argue that village life has been characterised increasingly by the multiplication of human mobility, the emergence of new forms of inter-ethnic clientship and social relations of estrangement, each of which may enable the industries to thrive. Above all, they are likely to render ineffective the Bosnian state’s attempts at incorporating the public, particularly in rural areas, into the surveillance and detection of people smuggling, trafficking and prostitution.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Ethnicity, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Trafficking, Human Trafficking Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Year: 2008