Papers by Tea Hadziristic
Religion and Gender, 2017
The creation of the second Yugoslavia (1943–1992) heralded the legal and economic emancipation of... more The creation of the second Yugoslavia (1943–1992) heralded the legal and economic emancipation of women, a social change deeply indebted to the role of female combatants in the Partisan army, and catalyzed by post-war state-building. The AntiFascist Women’s Front (AFŽ) was a primary agent in rapid social changes that followed. Along with education and literacy campaigns, from 1947–1950 local chapters of the AFŽ organized campaigns to unveil Muslim women in Yugoslavia, as the practice was deemed incompatible with economic and political participation as well as multiethnic unity. This paper focuses on the Bosnian case, though unveiling also took place in Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro. This paper investigates how state secularism put women’s ‘emancipated’ bodies to the fore as signifiers of progress and modernity. The process of unveiling in Yugoslavia is analyzed both within the context of the reconstruction and the consolidation of the socialist state, and the nexus of ideological conflicts in the region. Unveiling drew on Orientalist discourses, as well as the promise of a radical socialist future and an indigenous Yugoslav feminism, while popular support for the AFŽ problematizes notions of the oppressive nature of state-sanctioned feminism. The paper interrogates the discourses surrounding these campaigns of unveiling, as they draw on and confound various dichotomies.
Despite huge strides made during socialism, the position of women in work and social life in Bosn... more Despite huge strides made during socialism, the position of women in work and social life in Bosnia has taken a huge step back since independence. Why?
This policy brief for an EU-funded project seeks to assess the current public procurement monitor... more This policy brief for an EU-funded project seeks to assess the current public procurement monitoring system in BiH, examine the main functions, challenges and constraints in the monitoring of public procurement processes, as well as to explore the role of different actors in this field, including governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations. To that end, this policy brief reviews relevant concepts and main principles of public procurement monitoring, as well as international standards and comparative practices.
The aim of the study "(In)equality in Social Protection: Multi-level Analysis of Intersectionalit... more The aim of the study "(In)equality in Social Protection: Multi-level Analysis of Intersectionality in Social Assistance Provision - A Comparative Study" was to identify to what extent there were discrepancies between the actual needs of people receiving social assistance, how society perceived them, and the policies of the social protection system by applying intersectional approach.
One of the main conclusions of this research was that the individuals that are, or ought to be, social assistance recipients in BiH face intersecting and concurrent inequalities which indisputably exacerbate the poor situation they live in, creating obstacles in their coping strategies. As such, it became clear through our findings that neither the social protection system nor the relevant policies adequately address these multiple sources of inequality.
This publication is a result of the project „(In)equality in Social Protection: Multi-level Analysis of Intersectionality in Social Assistance Provision - A Comparative Study“ implemented by European Policy Institute – Skopje (link is external) in partnership with Center for Social Research Analitika. The project is supported by Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP) (link is external).
While the ongoing migrant crisis tests the bonds between member states, control over the enlargem... more While the ongoing migrant crisis tests the bonds between member states, control over the enlargement process is also becoming increasingly nationalized – with national legislatures and governments of EU member states playing a stronger role than ever – at the cost of a unified EU policy towards the accession of the Western Balkans. The Balkans will that the Balkans will likely be subjected to a very strict application of the conditions of membership – ‘conditionality’. A long process of accession defined by strict conditionality may provide an unprecedented opportunity for local actors involved in policy research, analysis, and advocacy to take a central role in EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans.
New trends in research and data transparency are evidence of the way that technology has influenc... more New trends in research and data transparency are evidence of the way that technology has influenced the academic world. Namely, the latest topic on the minds of social scientists has been the so-called DA-RT initiative – short for Data Access and Research Transparency. DA-RT is an attempt to address shortfalls in social science research, including a lack of transparency, a lack of replicable research results, lax methodological tools, and the effects that these shortcomings have on the legitimacy of the discipline itself.
My contribution to Philopolitics' research project on Yugoslav identity today.
Kada su radnici Zemaljskog Muzeja u Sarajevu zatvorili muzej za publiku 2012. zbog nedostatka sre... more Kada su radnici Zemaljskog Muzeja u Sarajevu zatvorili muzej za publiku 2012. zbog nedostatka sredstava od vlade, nisu ni pomišljali da će ostati zatvoren tri godine. Njihov protest je nije bio primjećen, a problem sa finansijama neriješen. Tri godine vjerno su išli na posao, dolazili su u Muzej na dežuru, čistili, provjetravali, održavali izložbe, čuvali objekte, i fizicki ih branili – smjenjujići se preko noći i dana. Tri godine nisu primali plate. Po medijama je vladala priča o njihovoj sebičnosti, dok se brojni planovi da se Muzej ponovo otvori nisu ostvarivali. Ulaz u Muzej spriječen je daskama na kojima piše Zatvoreno i tako je stajalo godinama. Danas se Muzej ponovo vraća u svijest gradjana.
How is a discernibly queer performer, who sings not pop but traditional, serious sevdah music, in... more How is a discernibly queer performer, who sings not pop but traditional, serious sevdah music, incredibly popular all over Bosnia? How Božo Vrećo's sevdah has a radical potential re: LGBT rights and anti-nationalism in Bosnia.
"Outside of a context where LGBT rights are seen as part of a modernization package leading to EU accession, Vrećo's queerness is accepted because it is seen as Bosnian rather than a threat coming from the ‘outside’. In itself, this has radical potential because it demonstrates that queerness is not a Western import and that it can and does exist naturally in Bosnia and jive with ‘Bosnianness’. A Bosnian queer is possible."
"There is, though, a curious way in which the NEWBORN statue corresponds to the longstanding prac... more "There is, though, a curious way in which the NEWBORN statue corresponds to the longstanding practice of referring to Balkan states as ‘babies’, or children. In seriocomic maps and political cartoons from the early 20th century, states like Albania and Serbia, newly independent after centuries of imperial rule, are commonly portrayed as babies — feckless newborns in a Europe of great powers and empires. And in a remarkable way, Balkan states keep returning to this ‘new’ status. Somewhat welcomed as the newest children of the European family after independence in 1804, 1821, 1877, 1908, and 1912, these same states, some with different borders and political configurations, were born again after the Balkan Wars, or after the First World War, or the Second, or after the fall of the USSR and the break-up of Yugoslavia. At each turn they were seen as underdeveloped, backward states that had a lot of catching up to do if they wanted to be proper European states. Like Peter Pan, the Balkans have remained children for over a hundred years after their ‘birth’ into the European states system."
http://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/article/1292/states-of-infancy
Presented at "The New Perspectives for Western Balkans" panel at CDRSI's Academic Conference „Wes... more Presented at "The New Perspectives for Western Balkans" panel at CDRSI's Academic Conference „Western Balkans After 2013 Enlargement – Escape From Limbo? “ October 31 – November 03, 2013, Kopaonik, Serbia
In a context of the perpetually shifting lines of division between East and West in Europe, defining what is ‘really’ Europe and what is outside of it is a perennial project to making Europe – Morozov and Rumelili argue that Europe is externally constituted by differentiating itself from what is seen as its periphery, most often Turkey and Russia. The 1990s scholarship on this looks at how the projects of inventing Eastern Europe (Wolff) or imagining the Balkans (Todorova) rely on essentializing certain traits as ‘Balkan’ in order to draw conceptual and geographic boundaries between there and the rest of Europe, and are necessary to shoring up a certain definition of Europe itself. In this sense, EU enlargement/integration remains a project in dividing East from West, and defining itself through what it is not; it rests on determining outsiders from insiders, even within its own boundaries. In this way, the EU Copenhagen criteria and rules of accession function as new standards of civilization; states must be civilized into the European Community. This standard also serves as a moving target which disciplines state behavior while reinscribing their peripheral location and identity. With Croatia’s accession to the EU—what Jelena Subotic argues was a successful case of ‘identity convergence’ with Europe (contrasted to Serbia’s ‘identity divergence’)—the new border alters the actual and imaginary topography and limits of the ‘Balkans’. This raises the questions – can the Balkans ever fully become Europe without vacating their own categorization as such? Can Europe accept Balkan states and still remain ‘Europe’? After 2013 enlargement, where can we locate the Balkans?
In a paper for my International Relations Theory core course on I explore how central to realist... more In a paper for my International Relations Theory core course on I explore how central to realist thought is the view of politics as necessarily ‘tragic’.
Published in 'The Future of History', University of Toronto undergraduate history journal. Spring... more Published in 'The Future of History', University of Toronto undergraduate history journal. Spring 2012.
FORTHCOMING by Tea Hadziristic
Resisting the exhaustion provoked by postsocialist revamped patriarchies that tried – yet again –... more Resisting the exhaustion provoked by postsocialist revamped patriarchies that tried – yet again – to harden the line between ‘men’ and ‘women’, our volume explores the thus far insufficiently recognised histories and politics of trans lives, activisms, and culture across the post-Yugoslav states. Written by an interdisciplinary collective of authors engaged in transnational trans struggles, this book uncovers a diversity of gender embodiments while wondering about (and at) how they have navigated the murky waters of war, racism, capitalism, and transphobia. By unleashing the knowledge concentrated in trans lives, we do not only run counter to trans erasures in Eastern Europe, but underscore our potentials for survival, self-transformation, and engagement in politically challenging circumstances. As we behold the painful wreckage of the Yugoslav socialist project, embracing the proliferation of gender possibilities is perhaps one way towards novel forms of being together.
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This path-breaking collection of post-Yugoslavian transgender scholarship provides vital insight into critical refigurations of trans discourse on Europe’s eastern periphery that we in the West would do well to heed.
Susan Stryker, Executive Editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
---
A thematic series of studies on the post-Yugoslav LGBTQ existence and activist engagement, written and edited by regional LGBTQ activists and scholars, has been steadily growing over the last decade. The chief editor of the series, Bojan Bilić, invited respective fellow editors to help him coordinate three groups of thematic specialists: in 2016, Sanja Kajinić for the volume about intersectionality and LGBTQ activism in Croatia and Serbia; in 2019, Marija Radoman for the book on the history and politics of lesbian activism, and in 2022, Aleksa Milanović and Iwo Nord for a collection about trans lives, activisms, and culture.
Like the preceding ones, the latest, trans-related, volume not only collects and interweaves some ‘still rather dispersed threads’ of our lives and experiences, but it affords them political relevance and provides a platform upon which we can acknowledge each other in feminist, activist solidarity. In such a way, this unusual research initiative inspires further exploration and makes our community stronger, more resilient, and politically more self-reflexive. We need all of that if we are to respond to the conservative encroachments upon democracy which have been taking place throughout the post-Yugoslav region and beyond.
Maja Pan, lesbian feminist activist and independent scholar, Maribor, Slovenia
---
This precious volume combines empathy with knowledge and by doing so promises to augment our possibilities to freely experience and express ourselves in our region that has gone through such harsh times… We need books like this to empower us to live a life without aggression, violence, pathologisation… to encourage us to go beyond those suffocating frames that want to determine who we are and what it is that we can be.
Agatha Milan Đurić, Geten, Center for LGBTIQA People's Rights, Belgrade, Serbia
---
This richly textured and important book could not have come at a more welcome time... We have been long aware of the questions we would need to ask to understand the conditions for trans experiences and activism in the post-Yugoslav space, but unable to answer them without recourse to a work of this sensitivity and depth. That work has now arrived.
Catherine Baker, University of Hall
---
I know this book, like the edited volumes that preceded it, to be a labour of love, a sign of commitment to the cause, and a tangible expression of a deep desire to hear a wider range of voices than is usual in mainstream (and even so-called alternative) academic publishing.
Paul Stubbs, Institute of Economics, Zagreb
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Papers by Tea Hadziristic
One of the main conclusions of this research was that the individuals that are, or ought to be, social assistance recipients in BiH face intersecting and concurrent inequalities which indisputably exacerbate the poor situation they live in, creating obstacles in their coping strategies. As such, it became clear through our findings that neither the social protection system nor the relevant policies adequately address these multiple sources of inequality.
This publication is a result of the project „(In)equality in Social Protection: Multi-level Analysis of Intersectionality in Social Assistance Provision - A Comparative Study“ implemented by European Policy Institute – Skopje (link is external) in partnership with Center for Social Research Analitika. The project is supported by Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP) (link is external).
"Outside of a context where LGBT rights are seen as part of a modernization package leading to EU accession, Vrećo's queerness is accepted because it is seen as Bosnian rather than a threat coming from the ‘outside’. In itself, this has radical potential because it demonstrates that queerness is not a Western import and that it can and does exist naturally in Bosnia and jive with ‘Bosnianness’. A Bosnian queer is possible."
http://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/article/1292/states-of-infancy
In a context of the perpetually shifting lines of division between East and West in Europe, defining what is ‘really’ Europe and what is outside of it is a perennial project to making Europe – Morozov and Rumelili argue that Europe is externally constituted by differentiating itself from what is seen as its periphery, most often Turkey and Russia. The 1990s scholarship on this looks at how the projects of inventing Eastern Europe (Wolff) or imagining the Balkans (Todorova) rely on essentializing certain traits as ‘Balkan’ in order to draw conceptual and geographic boundaries between there and the rest of Europe, and are necessary to shoring up a certain definition of Europe itself. In this sense, EU enlargement/integration remains a project in dividing East from West, and defining itself through what it is not; it rests on determining outsiders from insiders, even within its own boundaries. In this way, the EU Copenhagen criteria and rules of accession function as new standards of civilization; states must be civilized into the European Community. This standard also serves as a moving target which disciplines state behavior while reinscribing their peripheral location and identity. With Croatia’s accession to the EU—what Jelena Subotic argues was a successful case of ‘identity convergence’ with Europe (contrasted to Serbia’s ‘identity divergence’)—the new border alters the actual and imaginary topography and limits of the ‘Balkans’. This raises the questions – can the Balkans ever fully become Europe without vacating their own categorization as such? Can Europe accept Balkan states and still remain ‘Europe’? After 2013 enlargement, where can we locate the Balkans?
FORTHCOMING by Tea Hadziristic
---
This path-breaking collection of post-Yugoslavian transgender scholarship provides vital insight into critical refigurations of trans discourse on Europe’s eastern periphery that we in the West would do well to heed.
Susan Stryker, Executive Editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
---
A thematic series of studies on the post-Yugoslav LGBTQ existence and activist engagement, written and edited by regional LGBTQ activists and scholars, has been steadily growing over the last decade. The chief editor of the series, Bojan Bilić, invited respective fellow editors to help him coordinate three groups of thematic specialists: in 2016, Sanja Kajinić for the volume about intersectionality and LGBTQ activism in Croatia and Serbia; in 2019, Marija Radoman for the book on the history and politics of lesbian activism, and in 2022, Aleksa Milanović and Iwo Nord for a collection about trans lives, activisms, and culture.
Like the preceding ones, the latest, trans-related, volume not only collects and interweaves some ‘still rather dispersed threads’ of our lives and experiences, but it affords them political relevance and provides a platform upon which we can acknowledge each other in feminist, activist solidarity. In such a way, this unusual research initiative inspires further exploration and makes our community stronger, more resilient, and politically more self-reflexive. We need all of that if we are to respond to the conservative encroachments upon democracy which have been taking place throughout the post-Yugoslav region and beyond.
Maja Pan, lesbian feminist activist and independent scholar, Maribor, Slovenia
---
This precious volume combines empathy with knowledge and by doing so promises to augment our possibilities to freely experience and express ourselves in our region that has gone through such harsh times… We need books like this to empower us to live a life without aggression, violence, pathologisation… to encourage us to go beyond those suffocating frames that want to determine who we are and what it is that we can be.
Agatha Milan Đurić, Geten, Center for LGBTIQA People's Rights, Belgrade, Serbia
---
This richly textured and important book could not have come at a more welcome time... We have been long aware of the questions we would need to ask to understand the conditions for trans experiences and activism in the post-Yugoslav space, but unable to answer them without recourse to a work of this sensitivity and depth. That work has now arrived.
Catherine Baker, University of Hall
---
I know this book, like the edited volumes that preceded it, to be a labour of love, a sign of commitment to the cause, and a tangible expression of a deep desire to hear a wider range of voices than is usual in mainstream (and even so-called alternative) academic publishing.
Paul Stubbs, Institute of Economics, Zagreb
One of the main conclusions of this research was that the individuals that are, or ought to be, social assistance recipients in BiH face intersecting and concurrent inequalities which indisputably exacerbate the poor situation they live in, creating obstacles in their coping strategies. As such, it became clear through our findings that neither the social protection system nor the relevant policies adequately address these multiple sources of inequality.
This publication is a result of the project „(In)equality in Social Protection: Multi-level Analysis of Intersectionality in Social Assistance Provision - A Comparative Study“ implemented by European Policy Institute – Skopje (link is external) in partnership with Center for Social Research Analitika. The project is supported by Regional Research Promotion Programme (RRPP) (link is external).
"Outside of a context where LGBT rights are seen as part of a modernization package leading to EU accession, Vrećo's queerness is accepted because it is seen as Bosnian rather than a threat coming from the ‘outside’. In itself, this has radical potential because it demonstrates that queerness is not a Western import and that it can and does exist naturally in Bosnia and jive with ‘Bosnianness’. A Bosnian queer is possible."
http://kosovotwopointzero.com/en/article/1292/states-of-infancy
In a context of the perpetually shifting lines of division between East and West in Europe, defining what is ‘really’ Europe and what is outside of it is a perennial project to making Europe – Morozov and Rumelili argue that Europe is externally constituted by differentiating itself from what is seen as its periphery, most often Turkey and Russia. The 1990s scholarship on this looks at how the projects of inventing Eastern Europe (Wolff) or imagining the Balkans (Todorova) rely on essentializing certain traits as ‘Balkan’ in order to draw conceptual and geographic boundaries between there and the rest of Europe, and are necessary to shoring up a certain definition of Europe itself. In this sense, EU enlargement/integration remains a project in dividing East from West, and defining itself through what it is not; it rests on determining outsiders from insiders, even within its own boundaries. In this way, the EU Copenhagen criteria and rules of accession function as new standards of civilization; states must be civilized into the European Community. This standard also serves as a moving target which disciplines state behavior while reinscribing their peripheral location and identity. With Croatia’s accession to the EU—what Jelena Subotic argues was a successful case of ‘identity convergence’ with Europe (contrasted to Serbia’s ‘identity divergence’)—the new border alters the actual and imaginary topography and limits of the ‘Balkans’. This raises the questions – can the Balkans ever fully become Europe without vacating their own categorization as such? Can Europe accept Balkan states and still remain ‘Europe’? After 2013 enlargement, where can we locate the Balkans?
---
This path-breaking collection of post-Yugoslavian transgender scholarship provides vital insight into critical refigurations of trans discourse on Europe’s eastern periphery that we in the West would do well to heed.
Susan Stryker, Executive Editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
---
A thematic series of studies on the post-Yugoslav LGBTQ existence and activist engagement, written and edited by regional LGBTQ activists and scholars, has been steadily growing over the last decade. The chief editor of the series, Bojan Bilić, invited respective fellow editors to help him coordinate three groups of thematic specialists: in 2016, Sanja Kajinić for the volume about intersectionality and LGBTQ activism in Croatia and Serbia; in 2019, Marija Radoman for the book on the history and politics of lesbian activism, and in 2022, Aleksa Milanović and Iwo Nord for a collection about trans lives, activisms, and culture.
Like the preceding ones, the latest, trans-related, volume not only collects and interweaves some ‘still rather dispersed threads’ of our lives and experiences, but it affords them political relevance and provides a platform upon which we can acknowledge each other in feminist, activist solidarity. In such a way, this unusual research initiative inspires further exploration and makes our community stronger, more resilient, and politically more self-reflexive. We need all of that if we are to respond to the conservative encroachments upon democracy which have been taking place throughout the post-Yugoslav region and beyond.
Maja Pan, lesbian feminist activist and independent scholar, Maribor, Slovenia
---
This precious volume combines empathy with knowledge and by doing so promises to augment our possibilities to freely experience and express ourselves in our region that has gone through such harsh times… We need books like this to empower us to live a life without aggression, violence, pathologisation… to encourage us to go beyond those suffocating frames that want to determine who we are and what it is that we can be.
Agatha Milan Đurić, Geten, Center for LGBTIQA People's Rights, Belgrade, Serbia
---
This richly textured and important book could not have come at a more welcome time... We have been long aware of the questions we would need to ask to understand the conditions for trans experiences and activism in the post-Yugoslav space, but unable to answer them without recourse to a work of this sensitivity and depth. That work has now arrived.
Catherine Baker, University of Hall
---
I know this book, like the edited volumes that preceded it, to be a labour of love, a sign of commitment to the cause, and a tangible expression of a deep desire to hear a wider range of voices than is usual in mainstream (and even so-called alternative) academic publishing.
Paul Stubbs, Institute of Economics, Zagreb