Space-time, pace and peace: theorising from post-war Mostar

Connecting the concepts of space, time, and pace, in this article I theorise how distinct narratives of (post-)conflict spaces impact people’s differing experiences of the pace of peace processes and post-war transitions. Drawing on 14 walking interviews in post-war Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), I identify three experiences of paces of the peace process connected to spaces across town: slow pace of liminality, acceleration of life, and fast-paced neoliberal development. By zooming into narratives about places in the city, I demonstrate that space influences people’s heterogeneous perceptions of slowness and fastness of the peace process. These findings improve our understanding of temporalities in transitional societies by demonstrating how spatial settings shape people’s temporalities of post-war transitions. Moreover, it helps advance the spatial turn in peace and conflict studies by employing spatial analysis to provide insights into the varied paces at which people experience peacebuilding processes and post-war reconstruction.