Urbanities,
Vol. 3 • No 1 • May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
99
Ottoman past with a strong European heritage, was once dubbed the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans’
for its religious and ethnic diversity. Today, out of its 550.000 inhabitants only 18.000 are ethnic
Serbs. For all it counts, the only thing people of Bosnia, whatever their ethnicity, clearly agreed
upon is that direct external intervention has to be reduced.
There’s no silver bullet for Bosnia’s problems. But the failure to spark a constitutional
debate on the devolution of powers from the High Representative to the local level will
hamstring the government in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and render it even more powerless than it is
now. Also, the EU has to have a clearer policy toward Bosnia and stop sending mixed messages,
as was the case when it allowed Serbs and Croats to travel without a visa but not Bosniaks.
Mistakes were made as it was hard to connect the dots looking forward. But now, looking
back, they must be amended. The final decision is with the people of Bosnia. Only Bosnians can
say if they are willing to take up the challenge, make difficult reforms and join the EU, or keep
the status quo, which will only widen the existing gap between Bosnia and the rest of Europe,
and in turn reduce the likelihood of a better life in the foreseeable future.
Visual Approaches to Urban Ethnography
1
Lidia K.C. Manzo
(University of Trento, Italy)
The visual tells about the city: its history, its social and spatial forms, and its characters.
Ethnography helps us understand the meaning, identifying the processes. Visual language has in
fact the potential to uncover meanings and representation that reflect an interesting micro
perspective on phenomenon under study; a connection that, however, today it is still restrained
by a mutual shyness. Both ethnographic photography and film may be the place where the work
1
This commentary is part of my ongoing reflection on ethnographic experience and visual
methodologies. Some of the issues addressed here were discussed during a workshop (co-authored with
Jerome Krase) held in Buenos Aires during the last ISA Visual Sociology Thematic Group conference of
August 2012.
