The Ibar River runs through the Northern Kosovo City of Mitrovica, located about 60 miles from the border with Serbia. On one side of the river live ethnic Serbs; on the other side, ethnic Albanians. They are separated not only by water but also by language, religion, and history, as well as persistent tensions bred by generations of mistrust. For many residents, the New Bridge, which connects the two sides of the river, symbolizes the division between the Albanian south and the Serbian north, both in Mitrovica and in Kosovo. That most residents of Mitrovica rarely, if ever, cross the bridge represents the society’s extreme social fragmentation—a primary category of risk for large-scale, identity-based violence, including mass atrocities.

It may be surprising to learn that the bridge has become the setting for a market where Mitrovicans come together to buy and sell food, clothing, jewelry, and other items. The market was created in 2021 by Community Building Mitrovica (CBM), a local civil-society organization that has operated in the city for more than 20 years to bridge divisions between Albanians and Serbs. Staffed by a roughly equal number of each, CBM wants Mitrovica’s residents to think about the New Bridge as a meeting point where residents can advance shared economic development goals and celebrate a common culture.

The symbolism of the New Bridge example is deeply resonant today. The intensification of violence between Israel and Gaza following Hamas’ brutal October 2023 attack is a reminder to the world of the ostensible endlessness and intractability of the multigenerational conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Its persistence, based in part on ethnic and religious identities, demonstrates how difficult it is to reverse entrenched identity-based violence, a phenomenon we define as physical, institutional, and structural violence targeting disfavored groups. Contemporary violence in Gaza is just one example, however, of how high levels of identity-based social fragmentation, when left unchecked and combined with other risk factors, can erupt into horrific violence.

Read the full article about preventing identity-based violence by Susan Appe, David A. Campbell, and Kerry Whigham at Stanford Social Innovation Review.