Too much analysis of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia places the emphasis on ethnicity; too little pays attention to the geographic space in which the cleansing unfolded. This omission is important, not just for our understanding of the roots of the conflict but also for our analysis of its resolution. As Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman demonstrate, there were two attempts to remake Bosnia during the 1990s, both explicitly geographic in nature. The first took place through the violent process that is commonly misperceived as 'ethnic cleansing', in which different groups, not always organised along ethnic lines, sought to seize control of or seek refuge in geographic resources. The second comprised the legal-normative process of return, in which displaced persons (often, but not exclusively, ethnic minorities) sought to reclaim those geographically fixed assets they had lost. For many, it is still unclear which of these two projects will predominate.
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