White Armband Day: From global social media campaign to transnational commemoration day

Abstract

This article is concerned with White Armband Day ( Dan Bijelih Traka), marked on 31 May in memory of the genocidal campaign against Prijedor’s non-Serb population during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–95). What started spontaneously in 2012 as a global social media campaign against genocide denial has become a commemoration day marked in Prijedor, the post-Yugoslav region, across the world and in virtual spaces. Its widespread recognition and impact on alternative memory discourses rendered it one of the most successful civil society initiatives engaging in dealing with the past in the region. Drawing on a transnational mobilisation perspective, the article explores how the initiative emerged and what factors contributed to White Armband Day’s establishment as a transnational commemoration day. Findings from multi-sited research indicate that beyond rapid online mobilisation, two prerequisites have been key to its success: displacement-based (trans)local networks of Prijedorčani and its ability to mobilise young people across ethnic divisions.