“‘Sow hunger, reap anger’”: From neoliberal privatization to new collective identities in Bosnia Herzegovina

The 2013 and 2014 mass protests emerged unexpectedly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country still recovering from the difficult experience of the 1992-1995 war. A thorough analysis of the protest events and their dy- namics reveals that, although unexpected, the rebellion at the periphery of Europe was far from unpredictable. This chapter offers a close reading of the two episodes of protests: the 2013 demonstrations for citizenship rights and the 2014 protests against corruption and for social justice. The chapter analyzes the social basis and organizational format of the mobilizations, exploring in detail the connections with the local cultural environment, as well as the frames used. The chapter discusses the extent to which the neoliberal restructuring of the country on the one hand pauperized the population, and on the other hand fostered the emergence of a renewed solidarity grounded in deprivation rather than ethnicity.