Hoping for Change: A Snapshot of Gender and Constitutional Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In October 2013, following almost two decades of exclusion from post-conflict constitutional debates in Bosnia and Herzegovina, gender advocates within civil society sought to publicly present a Women’s Platform for constitutional reform. This article takes a snapshot of that moment – the juncture when civil society activists launched the Platform – to understand the role of hope at a time when attempts to mobilise for change occurs. I explore how individual and collective performances of hope contribute to the process and practice of mobilising within post-conflict political initiatives. Investigating this offers us another way of paying attention to how affective processes ‘move’ us, enabling the development of a nuanced perception about activism beyond simplistic narratives of success and failure in post-conflict contexts.