Open AccessDeconstruction of ‘scientifically based injustices’: About post-war traumatized populations of ‘spoilers’ in Croatia
Author(s) -
Sandra Cvikić
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
sociologija
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.174
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2406-0712
pISSN - 0038-0318
DOI - 10.2298/soc19s1697c
Subject(s) - transitional justice , deconstruction (building) , postmodernism , power (physics) , sociology , croatian , economic justice , political science , knowledge production , social science , law , epistemology , philosophy , ecology , linguistics , physics , knowledge management , quantum mechanics , computer science , biology
Contemporary Croatian social reality's determined by the epistemological and policy frameworks developed to understand and care for the post-war Yugoslav ?traumatized citizens.? Knowledge produced in that respect exerts powerful influence on citizen?s lives thus subjecting them to detrimental effects of scientifically designed conceptual frameworks and discursive practices of conducted research (Hass, 2001). So far, researched ?transitional life? in post-communist/postwar Croatia is rooted in ?knowledge power structures? meticulously developed inside transitional justice academic and policy works on former Yugoslav societies enabling continuous production of ?scientifically based injustices? (De Genova et al, 2016). Therefore, the main objective in this paper is to examine knowledge production about Croatian ?transitional society? and ?traumatized populations? and how its discursive construction of the new ?Other? - ?spoilers? (Fisher, 2011) is scientifically rooted in ?transitional justice? policy application (Leebaw, 2005).Thereby, a selection of transitional justice scholarly works on Croatia and the Western Balkans along with documents produced by the international organizations/institutions in the period 1997-2017 are studied. Foucauldian discourse analysis (Klos-Czerowinska, 2015) coupled with his (2003, 2007) and Agamben?s (1998, 2005) understanding of the postmodern European society are used to ?deconstruct? (Janks, 2005) ?scientifically based injustices? produced about post-war traumatized populations of ?spoilers? in Croatia.