This article will present a new way of capturing highly dynamic intergroup differentiation processes through applying a spatial perspective. Drawing from my experiences collected during several field research visits to Bosnia aimed at assessing Post-Dayton intergroup relations, and inspired by the works of Doreen Massey, Michel De Certeau, and Rom Harré, I will suggest that one key to understanding how groups interpret the behavior of other groups lies in the meaning groups ascribe to the place of their interaction. With the rules of a place limiting the range of actions social agents can chose from, an understanding of ’normal’ behavior is established; which in the same second positions all other possible acts as outside the local moral order.
Thus making the right to interpret a central place a favorable position and the interpretation of such a place into a strong positioning act influencing the terms of future interactions. Deciphering the dominant political meanings of central places on which intergroup interactions take place therefore becomes a promising way of understanding intergroup positioning processes. Approximating to the meanings local groups ascribe to central places, however, is in need of a thorough interpretational framework; one possible framework, based on analyzing the symbols that are used in the interpretational acts themselves, will round up this spatial approach to understanding intergroup interactions.
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