Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village

Over the past three years I've become close to a Bosnian Muslim extended family living in Central Texas. This past summer I was invited to spent almost 3 weeks in the Sanski Most area. About two years ago I read this book, and it has been invaluable in helping me understand customs practiced in Bosnia, and to some extent practiced in the U.S. when practical. I gave the book to one of the youth who is having a problem adjusting to U.S. life. She found some solace in having a snapshot of a life she never fully lived as she had to leave when she was 7 years old. The book is well written, engaging, and more importantly, reflects the life of these rural Muslim Bosnians very accurately.

Bringa provides here a very readable and accessible discussion of identity boundaries in a mixed Muslim/Catholic village during the period directly before the Bosnian War. Her chapter on the history and historiography of Bosnian identity is, I think, the best piece available on the subject. Her treatment of local culture and local boundaries is warmly written and scholarly... in the best tradition of anthropological literature. I have used this course in an undergraduate seminar I taught to very good effect. The students enjoyed the book and seemed to get a lot out of it. This book is not a primer on the Bosnian War, nor does it attempt to make a global explanation for why that war occurred. It is however a tremendous resource on Bosnian Muslim culture and a very important contribution to the literature on identity and cultural boundaries. For those interested in such issues, I can give this work a very strong recommendation.

Filled with observation of the Muslim and (to a lesser extent) Croat culture of a typical mixed Muslim-Croat village in central Bosnia. The author, a Norwegian anthropologist, had done fieldwork in Bosnia-Hercegovina during the five years preceding the 1992-1995 wars. She wrote the book during those wars and after the village that she had studied had been destroyed. Well worth reading. (I discovered Bringa as I was writing Untangling Bosnia and Hercegovina, a book about post-war Bosnia and Hercegovina. I found her book to be an absolutely unique and valuable resource.)

Bringa, a lecturer of social anthropology at Bergen University of Norway, conducted extensive fieldwork over a period of six years in a mixed Croat-Muslim village in Central Bosnia. Through careful ethnography she has observed the ways in which such concepts as "ethnos", "nation", and "religion" were understood by, and effected the Bosnians with whom she studied. She demonstrates the complexities of interethnic relations on a micro-level. This study helps question overarching theories of nationalism, which exaggerate the difference between different nations. This study is detailed, well-researched and well-written. Despite its detail, it can be highly recommended for anybody working on or interested in Bosnia, former Yugoslavia and interethnic relations.