Slowing Down

This article introduces the special issue on slow memory in the Yugoslav successor states, and as such proposes some directions for further developing a framework of the slow that can be incorporated into the conflict analysis and conflict transformation inquiries in memory studies. By placing the slow memory framework alongside the slow peace one, the special issue editors make visible what far too often is lost in depictions of war and peace, as well as its commemoration: the local and regional experiences of war that are beyond events only. In tracing slow memory practices in the region, this introductory article will feature two main threads of analysis in the existing literature: the first relating to tracing remembrance beyond the violent breakup of Yugoslavia only; and the second which allows the tracing of mnemonic actions beyond ethnicity only. The article will do so by featuring the slow in the study of activism, protests, and joint social actions, followed by the use of the slow in the analysis of mnemonic murals as an emerging form of commemoration.