Intergroup Contact and Post-Conflict Community Reconciliation

Modern day Bosnia suffers from widespread ethnic segregation, solidified by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian war. This has resulted in a lack of intergroup contact and the deepening of ethnic cleavages. In this book, Charlotte Freeman reviews the historical and political context of the region and analyses how the Dayton Peace Accords have contributed to segregating, rather than integrating, the country. She uses the contact hypothesis , a concept from social psychology, to demonstrate the need for intergroup contact in order to achieve effective and sustainable reconciliation. Freeman addresses social and structural challenges to intergroup contact in the Bosnian context and suggests practical ways to facilitate meaningful intergroup contact in Bosnia. Finally, she addresses the larger question of negotiating peace treaties that work with, rather than against, the natural psychological process of reconciliation.

Autorentext

Charlotte M. L. Freeman works in the field of identity-based conflict transformation and community reconciliation in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the USA. She holds an M.A. with distinction in Human Rights & Cultural Diversity from the University of Essex and is the Program Development Director with Initiatives of Change USA.