Stepping back | Adina Selimović

  

After three months of thinking about what turns my work should take, I might finally found my path. The idea of making a guided tour still seems to be final.   

  

Let me quickly sum up what are the elements of my project I seem sure of right now:   
-It is tour of Jewish heritage in Sarajevo 

 - It will be a self-guiding app   
- The target group will be tourists who have an interest in heritage and literature  

  

  

New Questions emerging   

  

During last month we presented our thesis to professors and our colleagues from the second year.  My respondent gave me some valuable suggestions and tips about what I should be focusing on. For example, asking me to think about my target audience. Professors also had valid points I am taking into consideration. Joska repeated once again to think of “Head, foot and the stomach “. Most tours in Sarajevo, that I have observed, indeed lack this last element of satisfying our bellies after a long walk. (And I do mean long, some of the tours are four hours long)   

  

  

  

The most important piece of information I have received is that I need to start thinking about what does indeed connect sites and how they fit into same narrative. Is it enough to pile it all up in one box just because they have „Jewish“in front of it? This made me think of what can actually be considered Jewish, the answer of this I have found in the book by Rosman „How Jewish is Jewish history “. The author deals with a postmodern turn in historiography that has affected Jewish studies as well. He tries to answer who can be considered a Jew and how to fit all different social and religious groups into one category. Luckily for my project postmodernism also means cultural turn in Jewish studies, the culture is the element that unites Jewish community more than religion, economic status, location and so on.    

  

In respect to this, I have decided to make the distinction between Sephardi Jewish heritage and Ashkenazi heritage.  Taking into consideration my personal interest I will be focusing on Sephardi Jewish heritage.   Thinking about the difference of those two communities I remembered the quite from Jakob Finci, I read on poster for exhibition "Survival in Sarajevo"

  If you are interested to know more about the role of the Jewish community in Sarajevo during Siege, and the connections between Jews and non-Jews in Sarajevo. I strongly recommend watching this short film: http://www.centropa.org/sites/default/files/film/video/sarajevo_eng_nosub-032014.mp4    

P.S while watching it have in mind that bizarrely enough the purpose of Siege of Sarajevo was to distract rest of the world from  ethic cleansing in rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

In the last post, I have written about the criteria I will use for the selection of sites, the decision is not made yet, but I have changed the perspective I think about the criteria.  Now, I am thinking of what the criteria should for connecting sites be, not what site is “worth presenting”. The change and progress might not be great, but for now, to me, it seems much clearer about the direction I am taking. (not to mention the stress it reviles me from)  

I have decided to take a step back, and not think about the specific sites but about Identity and Heritage. Hopefully, during the break I will have time to read following works that will potentially show me how to think Heritage and Identity in postmodern world:   

 -Soderland, Hilary A, Identity and Heritage: Contemporary Challenges in a Globalized World  

 -Rodney Harrison, Heritage: Critical Approaches  

  

  

  

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