Croatia

Lesbian Activism in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space: Sisterhood and Unity

Citation:

Bilić, Bojan, and Marija Radoman, eds. 2019. Lesbian Activism in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space: Sisterhood and Unity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Authors: Bojan Bilić, Marija Radoman

Annotation:

Summary:
This book intertwines academic and activist voices to engage with more than three decades of lesbian activism in the Yugoslav space. The empirically rich contributions uncover a range of lesbian initiatives and the fundamental, but rarely acknowledged, role that lesbian alliances have played in articulating a feminist response to the upsurge of nationalism, widespread violence against women, and high levels of lesbophobia and homophobia in all of the post-Yugoslav states. By offering a distinctly intergenerational and transnational perspective, this collection does not only shed new light on a severely marginalised group of people, but constitutes a pioneering effort in accounting for the intricacies – solidarities, joys, and tensions – of lesbian activist organising in a post-conflict and post-socialist environment. With a plethora of authorial standpoints and innovative methodological approaches, the volume challenges the systematic absence of (post-)Yugoslav lesbian activist enterprises from recent social science scholarship. (Summary from Palgrave Macmillian)

Table of Contents:
1.Introduction: Recovering/Rethinking (Post-)Yugoslav Lesbian Activisms
Bojan Bilić

2.Yearning for Space, Pleasure, and Knowledge: Autonomous Lesbian and Queer Feminist Organising in Ljubljana
Teja Oblak and Maja Pan

3.Cartographies of Fear and Freedom: Lesbian Activists in the First Belgrade and Zagreb Pride Parades
Sanja Kajinić

4.Sisterhood Beyond Borders: Transnational Aspects of Post-Yugoslav Lesbian Activism
Irene Dioli

5.Breaking the Silence: Lesbian Activism in Macedonia
Irena Cvetkovic

6.Searching for a Lesbian Voice: Non-Heterosexual Women’s Activism in Montenegro
Marina Vuković and Paula Petričević

7.(In)Visible Presences: PitchWise Festival as a Space of Lesbian Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adelita Selmić and Bojan Bilić

8.Conclusion: Discovering the Lesbian in Us—On Our Ongoing, Never-Ending Struggles
Marija Radoman

9.Epilogue: Collecting Fragments—Towards (Post-)Yugoslav Activist Archives
Bojan Bilić

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, LGBTQ, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans, Central Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2019

Veteran Masculinities and Audiovisual Popular Music in Post-Conflict Croatia: A Feminist Aesthetic Approach to the Contested Everyday Peace

Citation:

Baker, Catherine. 2019. “Veteran Masculinities and Audiovisual Popular Music in Post-Conflict Croatia: A Feminist Aesthetic Approach to the Contested Everyday Peace.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 226–42.

Author: Catherine Baker

Abstract:

In Croatia, campaigners for a more critical public reckoning with the memory of Croatia's 'Homeland War' (1991–5) and the national past confront embeddings of hegemonic myths of the war into everyday life. Among these are the stardom of a musician whose 'patriotic' music claims the same moral authority as the Croatian veterans' movement and whose public persona has embodied militarised masculinity since he became a wartime star. Popular music and youth engagement with it is thus among the sites where everyday understandings of peace are being contested. By exploring the audiovisual aesthetics of the song/video through which this musician re-engaged with veterans' activism in 1998, and showing that popular music spectatorship seeps into the everyday micropolitics of young people building and contesting peace, the paper argues that for critical peace and conflict studies to understand the affective politics of post-conflict masculinities, they must combine a feminist and aesthetic consciousness.

Keywords: audiovisual aesthetics, Croatia, everyday peace, masculinities, popular music, veterans

Topics: Age, Youth, Armed Conflict, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Post-Conflict, Peacebuilding Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia

Year: 2019

Security Sector Reform, Small Arms and Light Weapons and Gender in the Post-Conflict Western Balkans

Citation:

Szedlacsek, Eszter. 2019. “Security Sector Reform, Small Arms and Light Weapons and Gender in the Post-Conflict Western Balkans.” Corvinus Journal of International Affairs 4 (1): 26-38.

Author: Eszter Szedlacsek

Abstract:

We all experience war in a different way – building peace in post-conflict environments requires solutions that bring together various aspects of these experiences at the local, national and international levels. However, the actors involved and the social groups they address are only rarely those at the margin, and the diversity of the catch-all category of “locals” frequently goes unacknowledged when considering Security Sector Reform (SSR) and especially small arms control. Numerous studies have focused on SSR and gender in the Balkans, on perceptions of security in post-conflict environments and its gender-related aspects, as well as on the gendered aspects of small arms, but so far the analysis bringing together all of these aspects is scarce. This paper aims to address this gap, providing an overview of these areas to show that attempts at state-building and security-provision in the Western Balkans have failed to appropriately incorporate gender mainstreaming into their agendas. It is the central claim of this paper that policymakers must realize that gender mainstreaming without a broader understanding of gendered aspects of security does not and will not have transformative power – neither in the Western Balkans, nor in other post-conflict environments.

Keywords: security sector reform (SSR), post-conflict, small arms and light weapons (SALW), gender, Western Balkans

Topics: Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Security Sector Reform, Weapons /Arms Regions: Europe, Baltic states, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2019

Nationalism and Europeanization in LGBT Rights and Politics: A Comparative Study of Croatia and Serbia

Citation:

Swimelar, Safia. 2018. "Nationalism and Europeanization in LGBT Rights and Politics: A Comparative Study of Croatia and Serbia." East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 33 (3): 603-30. 

Author: Safia Swimelar

Abstract:

LGBT rights have come to be seen as allied with the idea of “Europe” and a European identity, particularly in the process of European Union enlargement to the East. Scholars have examined the ways in which external norms interact with more local, often “traditional” norms and identities. In this process, nationalism and conceptions of national identity and gender/sexuality norms can be seen as important factors that influence the domestic adoption of LGBT rights, particularly in the post-war Balkans. Croatia and Serbia (from approximately 2000 to 2014) present two interesting and different cases to analyze how discourses and dynamics of national and state identity construction, nationalism, and LGBT rights relate to discourses of “Europeanness” and European identity and how these affect the political dynamics of LGBT rights. This article finds that in Croatia, national identity was constructed in terms of convergence with European norms and identity, homonationalism was used to distinguish themselves from a “Balkan” identity, and there was a lower threat perception of the LGBT community framed primarily as a “threat to the family.” In Serbia, state and national identity was constructed in opposition to Europe and homosexuality had stronger threat perception, framed primarily as “threat to the nation.” In short, nationalism and national identity were less disadvantageous as a domestic constraint to LGBT rights in Croatia than in Serbia. The dynamics between nationalism and LGBT rights played out, for example, in the politics of the marriage referendum, Pride Parades, and public discourse more generally. This research contributes to the scholarship on LGBT rights and nationalism by empirically analyzing the different ways that nationalism, gender/sexuality, and European identity interrelate and influence LGBT rights change in a changing post-war identity landscape and how domestic constraints affect human rights norm diffusion.

Keywords: LGBT rights, nationalism, Balkans, Europeanization, human rights

Topics: Gender, LGBTQ, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Sexuality Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia, Serbia

Year: 2018

The 'Transformative' in Reparations: Women, Nation and Victimhood in Croatia

Citation:

Saric, Josipa. 2018. "The 'Transformative' in Reparations: Women, Nation and Victimhood in Croatia." PhD diss., University of Kent.

Author: Josipa Saric

Abstract:

This thesis interrogates the assumption that women's inclusion in the design of reparations increases their potential to transform structural gender inequality. In recent years, the call for increasing 'women's participation' in the design and implementation of reparations for victims of conflict-related sexual violence has gained substantial traction in both scholarship and policy. While existing research has focused on the structural obstacles that place limitations on women's participation in reparation processes, little has been said about how women's participation may limit the transformative potential of reparations. Drawing on a wide range of qualitative data, ranging from interviews to social media content, this case study takes a socio-legal approach to examine the role of a Croatian right-wing, non-feminist women's group in the process of drafting and adopting a reparation law for victims of conflict-related sexual violence and considers how this group's involvement has impacted the reparation law's potential to transform structural gender inequality in Croatia. The thesis shows that the women's group acquired influence that directed the course of the legislative process and the outcome of the law due to its particular discourse, strategic actions, calculated compromises and the socio-political context at the time. Furthermore, the thesis argues that the women's group's influence facilitated the reparation law's alignment to a particular nationalist discourse which, due to the inextricable link between gender and nationalism, places limitations on the law's potential to transform structural gender inequality in Croatia. Finally, it presents three important points to consider when conducting an evaluation of the law's implementation and embarking on the design of future transformative reparation initiatives in nationalist contexts. First, that the inclusion of women and victims may not necessarily lead to developing reparations that aim to transform structural gender inequality. Second, that a reparation law exclusively aimed at victims of conflict-related sexual violence designed in a context saturated with nationalism may reinforce gender inequality. And third, that the involvement of international bodies in the design and implementation of reparations in nationalist contexts may be used by local grassroots movements to put pressure on the state in unforeseen ways that do not challenge structural gender inequality.

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, International Organizations, Justice, Reparations, Nationalism, Political Participation, Sexual Violence Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia

Year: 2018

Taxing for Inequalities: Gender Budgeting in the Western Balkans

Citation:

Bojičić-Dželilović, Vesna, and Aida A. Hozić. 2020. “Taxing for Inequalities: Gender Budgeting in the Western Balkans.” Review of International Political Economy, April, 1–25. doi: 10.1080/09692290.2019.1702572.

Authors: Vesna Bojičić-Dželilović, Aida A. Hozić

Abstract:

This article seeks to illuminate structural limits of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) by analysing the interplay between economic and fiscal reforms, promoted by International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and gender budgeting initiatives in the Western Balkans. GRB is the core concept bridging revenue mobilization and gender equality in the work of IFIs. However, as the Western Balkans experience demonstrates, GRB initiatives are best characterized as “empty gestures” towards gender equality as they cannot compensate for the continued adverse effects of IFIs overall policies.

Keywords: VAT, Western Balkans, revenue mobilization, consumption-led growth, financialization, households, gender responsive budget

Topics: Development, Economies, Public Finance, Gender, Gender Budgeting, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, International Financial Institutions, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia

Year: 2020

Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia

Citation:

Bilić, Bojan, and Sanja Kajinić, eds. 2016. Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics: Multiple Others in Croatia and Serbia. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Authors: Bojan Bilić, Sanja Kajinić

Abstract:

This volume combines empirically oriented and theoretically grounded reflections upon various forms of LGBT activist engagement to examine how the notion of intersectionality enters the political context of contemporary Serbia and Croatia. By uncovering experiences of multiple oppression and voicing fear and frustration that accompany exclusionary practices, the contributions to this book seek to reinvigorate the critical potential of intersectionality, in order to generate the basis for wider political alliances and solidarities in the post-Yugoslav space. The authors, both activists and academics, challenge the systematic absence of discussions of (post-)Yugoslav LGBT activist initiatives in recent social science scholarship, and show how emancipatory politics of resistance can reshape what is possible to imagine as identity and community in post-war and post-socialist societies. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the areas of history and politics of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav states, as well as to those working in the fields of political sociology, European studies, social movements, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, and queer theory and activism. (Palgrave Macmillan)

Annotation:

Table of Contents:

LGBT Activist Politics and Intersectionality in Croatia and Serbia: An Introduction
Bojan Bilić and Sanja Kajinić

Part I Widening the Community

1. The (In)Visible T: Trans Activism in Croatia (2004-2014)
Amir Hodžić, J. Poštić, and Arian Kajtezović

2. Against Bisexual Erasure: The Beginnings of Bi Activism in Serbia
Radica Hura

3. Uncovering an A: Asexuality and Asexual Activism in Croatia and Serbia
Milica Batričević and Andrej Cvetić

4. Queer Beograd Collective: Beyond Single-Issue Activism in Serbia and the Post-Yugoslav Space
Bojan Bilić and Irene Dioli

Part II At the Crossroads of Oppression

5. Nowhere at Home: Homelessness, Non-Heterosexuality, and LGBT Activism in Croatia
Antonela Marušić and Bojan Bilić

6. Normalization, Discipline, and Conflict: Intersections of LGBT Rights and Workers' Rights in Serbia
Irene Dioli

7. Towards a More Inclusive Pride? Representing Multiple Discriminations in the Belgrade Pride Parade
Marija Radoman

8. White Angels Zagreb: Combating Homophobia as "Rural Primitivism"
Andrew Hodges

9. Queer Struggles and the Left in Serbia and Croatia: An Afterword
Dušan Maljković

Index

Topics: Gender, LGBTQ, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans Countries: Croatia, Serbia

Year: 2016

The Link Between Women’s Studies Programs and Grassroots Organizations in Lebanon, the Balkans, and the Palestinian Territories: A Comparative Study

Citation:

Toman, Cheryl. 2006. “The Link Between Women’s Studies Programs and Grassroots Organizations in Lebanon, the Balkans, and the Palestinian Territories: A Comparative Study.” Arab Studies Quarterly 28 (2): 55–67.

Author: Cheryl Toman

Abstract:

A primary goal of any women’s program is to create outreach opportunities beyond the university classroom in order to make a difference in one's community, whether at the local level or on the world stage. Thus, it is perhaps not a coincidence that strong Women's Studies programs have developed in Lebanon, the Balkans, and the Palestinian territories alongside successful women's activist groups. Together, they are able to work successfully despite the trials of functioning in conflict regions. This comparative study will analyze various women's organizations in these areas and their relationships with three Women's Studies programs in particular: The Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World in Beirut, the Center for Women's Studies in Zagreb, and the Women's Studies Program at Birzeit University in the West Bank. With a focus on work at the grassroots level as well as on research, these unique university programs in cooperation with women's associations not only aid women trying to survive and overcome the tremendous hardships of everyday life, but they are also playing an essential role, especially in the case of Lebanon and Palestine, in official policy making within their own governments. Lebanon, Croatia, and Palestine have been chosen for this comparison not only for their common ties to the Mediterranean, but also as home to multicultural peoples representing different stages of dealing with war and rebuilding. Although there are other conflict regions with women's activist groups that could be discussed here as well, Lebanon, Croatia, and Palestine stand not in particular since they are the only ones with well-established university programs in Women's Studies. The Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World in Lebanon and the Women's Studies Program at Birzeit University are the only two of their kind in the Arab world just as the Center for Women's Studies in Croatia is a model in Southeastern Europe.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Croatia, Lebanon, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2006

Reintegrating Veterans in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia: Citizenship and Gender Effects

Citation:

Berdak, Oliwia. 2015. “Reintegrating Veterans in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia: Citizenship and Gender Effects.” Women’s Studies International Forum 49 (March): 48–56. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2014.07.001.

 

Author: Oliwia Berdak

Annotation:

 
Synopsis:
This article explores the ways in which the 1991–1995 Yugoslav Wars and the policies of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) have affected gender relations and citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. DDR policies, and particularly the reintegration component, have come with a number of ‘side effects’. Rather than being a short-term solution to make combatants put down their weapons and become ‘normal’ citizens, they have valorised the citizen–soldier and created powerful identities and interest groups. Because this war was masculinised in both discourse and practice, this has resulted in highly gendered social citizenship, with the bulk of state resources now claimed by male war veterans. This study points to the need for greater contextualisation of any post-conflict policies. In the context of state- and nation-building, DDR policies are likely to become a tool of nationalist politics, entrenching hierarchical citizenship and hampering critical reflection about the conflict and militarised masculinity.

 

Topics: Citizenship, Combatants, DDR, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia

Year: 2015

Traffickers and Trafficking in Southern and Eastern Europe: Considering the Other Side of Human Trafficking

Citation:

Surtees, Rebecca. 2008. “Traffickers and Trafficking in Southern and Eastern Europe: Considering the Other Side of Human Trafficking.” European Journal of Criminology 5 (1): 39–68. doi:10.1177/1477370807084224.

Author: Rebecca Surtees

Abstract:

This paper describes patterns of trafficking from and within South-Eastern Europe, with particular attention to traffickers and their activities. This helps to determine the most effective methods of tackling these grave crimes through the strategic use of the criminal justice system. To date, attention has primarily been paid to victims of trafficking – who they are and what makes them vulnerable – in an effort to develop counter-trafficking interventions. To complement these studies of victims, studies of traffickers and their operations are also required. There is a need to address traffickers’ behavior through more effective law enforcement and through legal, social and economic reforms that will cause them to reassess the economic benefits of pursuing this strategy.

Keywords: criminal justice, prevention, prosecution, protection, recruitment, South-Eastern Europe, trafficker profiles, trafficking operations, Trafficking

Topics: Ethnicity, Gender, International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights, Justice, Livelihoods, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Trafficking, Human Trafficking Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2008

Pages

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