Abstract

This paper grapples with the complexity of surviving the perennial relegation to object positions in international politics and conflicts. It focuses on Bosnia and Korea as sites with complicated histories engendered and kept alive by specific experiences of conflicts and intimate “post-conflict” entanglements. Through a close reading of Bosnian and Korean films, we illustrate how “post-conflict” promises of transformation ushered in by declarations that the Cold War had ended create a particular post-conflict politico-affective scene. We term this scene “postsocialist” that makes visible how a myriad of narratives, images, and expressive iterations are resonant longings and orientations towards multiple worlds foreclosed by the triumphalist post-Cold War imaginary. Interweaving Bosnian and Korean films, we argue that nostalgia and longing are dramas of adjustments that create and reconfigure the international. Building upon the work on desire and affect by Lauren Berlant, Sara Ahmed, and Trinh Minhha, the paper proposes a new grammar for imagining, writing, and co-creating the international through a discussion of the case of slowness and being a fool in (post) conflict scenes.

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