Memory Activism and Digital Practices after Conflict

This book investigates the study of memory activism and memory of activism, emerging after conflict, as a political civic action. It examines the appearance and growth of memory activism in Serbia amid the legacies of unwanted memories of the wars of the 1990s, approaching the post-Yugoslav region as a region of memory and tracing the alternative calendars and alternative commemorative practices of memory activists as they have evolved over a period of more than two decades. By presenting in-depth accounts of memory activism practices, on-site and online, Memory Activism and Digital Practices after Conflict: Unwanted Memories analyses this evolution in the context of generational belonging and introduces frameworks for the study of #hashtag #memoryactivism, alternative commemorations and commemorative solidarity.

Fridman Orli :

Orli Fridman is an associate professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK), Singidunum University where she heads the Center for Comparative Conflict Studies (CFCCS). She also is the academic director of the School for International Training (SIT) learning center in Belgrade.

'Orli Fridman has written a broad, deep, and comprehensive book on memory activism in Serbia. Addressing a topic that is seriously underexplored in the broader scholarship of memory studies but also in the area studies scholarship on Serbian politics and society, Memory Activism succeeds in providing a truly nuanced analysis of the many overlapping generations of memory activists. This book adds an invaluable dimension to our understanding of the various different avenues memory activism can take and the complicated relationship between official and unofficial memory in societies with deeply contested narratives of the past.'
- Jelena Subotic, Comparative Southeast European Studies , , vol.72/ 3, 2024

"Orli Fridman has provided a fascinating account of memory activism in Serbia and the post-Yugoslav region. Lucidly written and meticulously researched, it adds greatly to our understanding of how commemoration and political dissent work together: essential reading."
- Ann Rigney, Utrecht University

"Attuned to the fine-grained singularities and complexities of memory activism, this is a sensitive account of the commemorative performativity that keeps historical time open in the present. Relaying the multiplicity of experiences involved in memory activism in Serbia in the aftermath of the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia, it offers compelling insights into the unresolved ongoingness of contemporary contingencies -including war, nationalism, inequality, and political loss. At the same time, it guides our attention to the capacity of counter-memory activism as a constitutive strand of peace activism to map terrains of dissent and social justice. Fridman’s thoughtful critical engagement summons possibilities for the transformative afterlife of unwanted and suppressed memories."
- Athena Athanasiou, Professor of Social Anthropology at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences - author of Agonistic Mourning: Political Dissidence and the Women in Black (Edinburgh University Press, 2017).