'Imagined suicide': self-sacrifice and the making of heroes in post-war Croatia

Abstract

Based on reflections during 12 months of fieldwork on gender-related recollections of war and violence in a central Dalmatian town in post-war Croatia, this paper explores how the traumatising experience of militant conflict (1991-1995) and subsequent affliction are dealt with on an individual level. Drawing on the example of a carnival episode in which one of my core interlocutors embodied a suicide bomber, I employ the concept of 'imagined suicide'. As a category of ironic commentary on global terrorism, yet an emblematic expression of discontent in a desolate post-war setting, 'imagined suicide' constitutes a concept in which violence is playfully performed as a politically creative force. My aim is to decipher the symbolism in which the dynamics of (imagined) violent action are embedded and to interpret its communicative messages in terms of intentional annotation of the actors' own reflections on their lives.