The Urban Transformation of Sarajevo After the Siege, the Role and Impact of the International Community

Following the signing of the peace agreement and the end of three-and-a-half years of siege, Sarajevo simultaneously experienced a double transition, from war to peace and from socialism to capitalism, that was marked by an increasing international intervention. This book presents a study of the urban transformation of Sarajevo during the post-war period and considers both the role and the impact of the international community in its spatial and ethnic configuration. Part I focuses on the period of maximum international involvement developed at local level, from December 1995 until 2003, and comprises chapters on the ethno-territorial division of the city, the reconstruction of its ethnic diversity and the liberal transition fostered and imposed internationally. Part II deals with the impact of these policies on the current spatial, functional and ethnic configuration in the area of Sarajevo.

Introduction.- Framing the double transition and the international intervention.- The division and destruction of Sarajevo.- The consolidation of the division after the war.- The struggle to rebuild ethnic diversity in Sarajevo.- The incomplete economic transition.- The urban spatial reconfiguration of Sarajevo.- The ethnic reconfiguration in the urban area of Sarajevo.- Conclusions.

Jordi Martín-Díaz completed his PhD in Geography in September 2017 at the Universitat de Barcelona, in a project that analysed the transformation of Sarajevo after the Bosnian War from the perspective of geopolitics. From the same university, he holds a MA in Teacher Training for Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate since 2017, a MsC in Territorial Planning and Environmental Management since 2010, and a Licence in Geography since 2008. Since February 2018, he is an associate lecturer at the Department of Geography from the Universitat de Barcelona. Since November 2020, he is also Director of a postgraduate program in Planning and Management of Smart Cities at the Universitat Carlemany (Andorra). During the last decade, he has conducted several field researches in Sarajevo and a research stay in the USA, at Virginia Tech. He has already published in several national and international top journals addressing issues in both fields of Human and Physical Geography. More specifically, he has published 9 articles in journals and 3 book chapters and given 13 lectures, most of them in international conferences. He also supervised 11 MSc dissertations. Finally, he has been so far integrated into Research Grant Fellow in 3 projects, and he was a PhD fellowship between 2012 and 2016 of the Spanish Ministry of Education. In his professional activities, he has interacted with 25 collaborators in scientific papers.