1 Reconstructing Post-Conflict Cultures: A Case Study of Bosnia Vanessa Pupavac Defining Culture A British official Brian Hopkinson working in Bosnia has declared international conflict management in Bosnia as involving “fighting a whole culture” (Interview, File on Four, BBC Radio 4, 30 May, 1999). Over the last decade tremendous interest has been expressed by international organisations such as UNESCO in the “deep cultural roots” of war. Cultural reform programmes are regarded today as a crucial component of international peace efforts. This chapter considers how international reconstruction efforts now encompasses cultural reform through a case study of peace building efforts in Bosnia. I begin by considering the understanding of culture held by international organisations before going on to examine international culture of peace models and their implementation in Bosnia. My research critically analyses the implications of international programmes for cultural autonomy and social cohesion in Bosnia. International conflict models understand culture in terms of cultural identity or a particular culture‟s way of life, traditions and customs. The idea of a specific culture overlaps with the idea of an ethnic community whose attributes include a collective proper name, a myth of common ancestry, and shared historical memories (Smith, 1991, p. 21). This pluralist understanding of culture, which is often used interchangeably with ethnic identity, owes much to anthropology and social psychology. Its understanding may be contrasted to the classical understanding of culture as human perfection or the best of human civilisation expressed in works such as Matthew Arnold‟s Culture and Anarchy. Broadly speaking, international conflict management approaches embody the shift from seeing culture in terms of a universal human civilisation to multiple cultures. The pluralist understanding is associated with a certain caution over modernisation programmes and the endorsement of multiculturalist approaches recognising distinct cultural identities as the foundation for social harmony. Importantly, recognition of cultural pluralism CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Nottingham ePrints