Yearnings in the meantime: 'normal lives' and the state in a Sarajevo apartment complex

Shortly after the book's protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people's sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless "Meantime." Ethnographically investigating yearnings for "normal lives" in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears

Shortly after the book's protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people's sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless'Meantime.'Ethnographically investigating yearnings for'normal lives'in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears

Shortly after the book's protagonists moved into their apartment complex in Sarajevo, they, like many others, were overcome by the 1992-1995 war and the disintegration of socialist Yugoslavia More than a decade later, in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, they felt they were collectively stuck in a time warp where nothing seemed to be as it should be. Starting from everyday concerns, this book paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of people's sense that they were in limbo, trapped in a seemingly endless "Meantime." Ethnographically investigating yearnings for "normal lives" in the European semi-periphery, it proposes fresh analytical tools to explore how the time and place in which we are caught shape our hopes and fears.

Introduction [or, towards an anthropology of shared concerns] -- Figuring 'normal lives' -- 'Normal lives' [or, towards an anthropology of yearning] -- Waiting for a bus [or, towards an anthropology of gridding] -- War-time gridding for 'normal lives' [or, towards an anthropology of hope for the state] -- Diagnosing Daytonitis -- First symptom: 'there is no system' [or, towards an anthropology of an elusive state effect] -- Second symptom: 'we are pattering in place' [or, towards an anthropology of spatiotemporal entrapment] -- Living with Daytonitis -- Conviviality in the meantime [or, towards a critique of Dayton non-politics] -- Epilogue, shovelling and numbering for 'normal lives'.