Blagojevic, Marina. Postdoc

By Katherine Harrison on 23 Mar | 0 comments

Marina Blagojevic  is a sociologist, gender scholar and gender expert. Currently she holds the highest scientific research position - scientific counselor - at the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade and is also a director of «Altera MB» Research Center on Gender and Ethnicity, Budapest.  Previously she has taught at the Gender Department of CEU, and is currently teaching Gender Studies at post graduate level, at Sarajevo university (gender and development).  As an international gender expert she has worked on gender policies  for UNDP, UNIFEM, IFAD, USAiD in many different post-communist countries.  Marina was one of the leaders of women´s movement in Serbia from the beginning of the 90s, and co-founder of different women´s organizations and other NGOs.  She has conducted research on a wide range of different issues, including women in professions, parenthood, everyday life, migration, ethnic relations and reconciliation, gender and science, women´s movements and misogyny. Her most recent book is titled Knowledge Production at the Semiperiphery: A Gender Perspective.  Her current research projects are related to single parenthood in the Western Balkans, rural women in Serbia,  and Masculinities in the Balkans.

During her stay as a GEXcel visiting scholar, Marina is working on her project: Balkan Masculinities: Deconstructing Global/Regional/Local Hegemonic Masculinities. This research is aiming to deconstruct the very notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ by identifying different types/models of masculinities in the social reality of concrete Balkan societies (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro), and by identifying a multiplicity of ‘hegemonies’ which exist on different levels of social reality (global/regional/local).  However, the notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ in terms of the prevalent ‘predatory masculinity’  - which exists in the neoliberal global and national economic arenas, and which is represented and actually performed by a small, but influential, number of male transnational and national power elite (politicians, businessmen and media stars) -  could be a useful tool to describe a dominant ideology of masculinity, which exerts enormous pressure on real men and their livelihoods, as well as on their relationships with concrete women, children and men in their surroundings. The major line of differentiation between different types of empirical masculinities could be described along the continuum of winners/losers of transition. This is dependent upon multiple and complex sets of  factors, such as: the consequences of wars upon individual lives of men (ability/disability, impoverishment or accumulation of capital),  education, professional orientation, age, rural/urban division, social capital and social background,  country of origin and country's position in relation to the process of Accession, presence of foreign companies and international  development organizations,  emigrational or entrepreneurial initiatives, etc.  Different types of masculinities are articulated on the ground: these types emerge on the surface as a set of attitudes, performances, identities, consumption patterns, political behavior, different inclinations towards different gender relations (gender contracts which are negotiated between women and men), different partnership and fatherhood models.  The research will explore and define several types of «winners» and several types of «losers».  It is assumed that “winners” are those who practice masculinities which are much more in concordance to the prevailing “hegemonic masculinity”, and vice versa. This research will be based on different existing sources, which will be subjected to the secondary analysis (i.e. nation wide surveys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro) and focus groups analysis,  as well as on new sources, such as:  in depth interviews  and discursive analysis of printed media.