The event the following day, February 5 th, was a public presentation and discussion of Safet HadžiMuhamedovi?’s new book Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape (New York: Berghahn, 2018). The discussion took place at the IFB meeting hall (ul. Sime Milutinovi?a 10/III) at 18:00 hours. Safet HadžiMuhamedovi? is a leading young social anthropologist from Sarajevo, who is now teaching at the University of Bristol and the SOAS of the University of London. He has done field work in Bosnia, the Lebanon, and a number of other places around the world. His new book Waiting for Elijah: Time and Encounter in a Bosnian Landscape is a study of a mixed rural community in Bosnia that was radically affected by the war of the 1990s. The traditional structures that brought together Serb Orthodox, Muslim, and Roma groups into a complex social whole were torn apart by war, with the Muslim and Roma groups subjected to mass violence and expulsion. Only a very few have returned and attempted to recreate the social patterns of the pre-war period. This has proved a difficult process. Safet's fieldwork was conducted with this group and their Serb Orthodox neighbours. It examines their past and new social realities through their current experiences and memories of the ritual and festival year and how it bound the disparate elements of their communities into a greater social whole. His study thus opens up new ways of approaching the plurality inherent to Bosnian society, a plurality that has long been subject to politically motivated and violent deconstruction. Key to this deconstruction is the stereotypical and ideological denial of any overarching Bosnian framework. Applying current anthropological approaches to the study of Bosnia's social pluralism, Safet HadžiMuhamedovi? demonstrates clearly the subtle, but undeniable presence in interlocking levels of personal and collective identity of recognisably Bosnian patterns of social and cultural complementarity and cohesion. This forms a Bosnian whole that embraces all its parts. In this way, his study makes visible aspects of Bosnian social and cultural interaction that often remain implicit and are therefore often ignored and denied by superficial or ideological motivated observers. At the heart of his approach and of his findings is the reality that Bosnian society is _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Sarajevo, Sime Milutinovi?a 10, tel: +(387 33) 217-665, 217-670, 217-680, fax: +(387 33) 206-484, e-mail: [email protected] www.forumbosna.org essentially interreligious and that none of the constituent groups is an independent or self-sufficient social reality. They rely on each other for their mutual self-constitution as part of a whole that is greater than and informs each of its individual parts. The book was presented by Nirha Efendi?, Curator at the National Museum in Sarajevo, Desmond Maurer, chair of the IFB Centre for historical studies, and Vahid Tanovi?, chair of the IFB Centre for technology and economic development, and moderated by Nerin Dizdar, a leading Bosnian social and political analyst and commentator. While the author was regrettably not able to be present, some of his key informants and interviewees were, and they also discussed the research process and what the book meant for them and their community.