Current Projects |
|
Caught in the middle? Anxieties of belonging and integration among queer Russian immigrants in Serbia.
(with Meg Poff; funded by UKRI Network Plus ‘Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition’)
In recent decades, LGBTQ+ rights have become a ‘symbol of Europe’, with this contentious linkage being used by international actors to align themselves with or in opposition to Europe or the ‘West’ and the values they claim to represent. It has also intersected with EU accession processes of the Balkan candidate states, with LGBTQ+ acting as a ‘litmus test’ for EU membership. In contrast, Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has been at the forefront of anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, passing restrictive legislation and enforcing a social climate that is hostile to LGBTQ+ lives and activisms. In the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the expansion of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, many LGBTQ+ Russians have left the country and settled in Serbia, highlighting the tensions in the international and domestic politics of immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, conflict, and ‘East’ versus ‘West’. Queer Russians in Serbia are thus positioned within a state of political liminality as they negotiate the domestic and international politics of LGBTQ+ rights. This study, which draws on a relational approach and participatory and ethnographic methodology, will use ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews to explore these immigrant belonging(s) and integration in Serbia and how queer Russian immigrants make sense of their lives amidst competing political realities.
Marching to the beat of whose drums? The transnational politics of the European LGBT Pride movement.
Our lives in four walls (Belgrade Pride 2017)
The struggle for LGBT equality is an important social fight that has a major impact on peoples lives. Although this struggle has gained international recognition in the last decade, we have also observed an increase resistance to the rights of LGBT people in a variety of contexts. With LGBT rights becoming a site of contention, the politics of Pride parades have a huge impact of LGBT lived experiences. Pride Parades have taken a central part in LGBT activism in recent years. Such events now take place in a variety of contexts and on all continents. Yet, despite the central nature of Pride within LGBT activism, little remains known about how it contributed to social change, particularly when it travels outside the confines of its Western Origin.
This research project aims to better understand the different politics of Pride parades and how activists are using Pride as a means to fight the increasing backlash against LGBT rights, as well as how they deal with inconsistent engagement of the state with the Pride often co-opting the event for their own politics. Additionally, by focussing on the Western Balkans, which remains an understudied area, the project also aims to provide further insights in LGBT politics there. This is important as current research predominantly analyses this region from the perspective of European integration process, leaving internal social movement struggles and tactics under explored. These insights will provide the space for activists at local and transnational level to re-evaluate how they engage with Pride — which is still seen as an essential element of their activism— as well as give guidance to international donors and stakeholders to consider how they evaluate and engage with Pride parades in non-Western context.
This research project aims to better understand the different politics of Pride parades and how activists are using Pride as a means to fight the increasing backlash against LGBT rights, as well as how they deal with inconsistent engagement of the state with the Pride often co-opting the event for their own politics. Additionally, by focussing on the Western Balkans, which remains an understudied area, the project also aims to provide further insights in LGBT politics there. This is important as current research predominantly analyses this region from the perspective of European integration process, leaving internal social movement struggles and tactics under explored. These insights will provide the space for activists at local and transnational level to re-evaluate how they engage with Pride — which is still seen as an essential element of their activism— as well as give guidance to international donors and stakeholders to consider how they evaluate and engage with Pride parades in non-Western context.
Past projects |
|
Sheltered Pride - Unstraight Stories from EuroPride 2022 Belgrade
UKRI Higher Education Innovation Fund funded project on the 2022 EuroPride in Belgrade.
“I set out on the morning of 17/09/22 to capture what was already confirmed to become a historic day. Looking through the pictures with Koen the day after we found so much power and beauty. Koen’s insights breathed life into these images and motivated me to present them back in celebration of our community.”
— @img_dawood
“Observing the twists and turns of politics of EuroPride 2022, I could not help but notice how the events of that week were in many ways haunted by the past politics of Pride in Belgrade. It felt like the whole of Belgrade Pride history happened all at once, as if time collapsed on itself. Yet, it also left me wonder, what was EuroPride.”
— Koen Slootmaeckers
If the 2001 Belgrade Pride is known as ‘Massacre Pride’, the 2010 as ‘State Pride’ and the 2014 as ‘Ghost Pride’, can we consider Europrideas ‘Sheltered Pride’? Sheltered from a ban by international pressure and political games; sheltered from violence by the police. Under the endless sea of umbrellas we found people bringing colour, rainbows, pride and diversity, yet all of it could have been easily missed.
The exhibition “Sheltered Pride” presents a snapshot of the events that happened on 17 September 2022, a snap shot of EuroPride. What happened? How did it happen? What did not happen at all? Embracing the way in which all of the history of Pride in Serbia seemed to have happened at once, the exhibition brings together pictures from EuroPride and its participants as captured by the artist @IMG_Dawoodwith quotes of Dr Koen Slootmaeckers’ decade long research on Pride politics in Serbia. The exhibition hopes to create a space of reflection, of exploration and hopes to serve as a platform for sharing personal experiences of and reflections on EuroPride .
Through the combination of the visual and words, agnostic of their temporality, the exhibition invites participants to reflect on their experience of EuroPride, Politics, Activism, Police, LGBTQI identities, Defiance, Fear, Beauty and Pride, and contribute their own experiences and stories.
“I set out on the morning of 17/09/22 to capture what was already confirmed to become a historic day. Looking through the pictures with Koen the day after we found so much power and beauty. Koen’s insights breathed life into these images and motivated me to present them back in celebration of our community.”
— @img_dawood
“Observing the twists and turns of politics of EuroPride 2022, I could not help but notice how the events of that week were in many ways haunted by the past politics of Pride in Belgrade. It felt like the whole of Belgrade Pride history happened all at once, as if time collapsed on itself. Yet, it also left me wonder, what was EuroPride.”
— Koen Slootmaeckers
If the 2001 Belgrade Pride is known as ‘Massacre Pride’, the 2010 as ‘State Pride’ and the 2014 as ‘Ghost Pride’, can we consider Europrideas ‘Sheltered Pride’? Sheltered from a ban by international pressure and political games; sheltered from violence by the police. Under the endless sea of umbrellas we found people bringing colour, rainbows, pride and diversity, yet all of it could have been easily missed.
The exhibition “Sheltered Pride” presents a snapshot of the events that happened on 17 September 2022, a snap shot of EuroPride. What happened? How did it happen? What did not happen at all? Embracing the way in which all of the history of Pride in Serbia seemed to have happened at once, the exhibition brings together pictures from EuroPride and its participants as captured by the artist @IMG_Dawoodwith quotes of Dr Koen Slootmaeckers’ decade long research on Pride politics in Serbia. The exhibition hopes to create a space of reflection, of exploration and hopes to serve as a platform for sharing personal experiences of and reflections on EuroPride .
Through the combination of the visual and words, agnostic of their temporality, the exhibition invites participants to reflect on their experience of EuroPride, Politics, Activism, Police, LGBTQI identities, Defiance, Fear, Beauty and Pride, and contribute their own experiences and stories.
From 'Strategic Accession' to 'Tactical Europeanisation'? The Promotion of and Resistance to LGBT Equality in Serbia’s European Integration Process (PhD — table of content)
Supervisors: Prof. Adam Fagan & dr Paul Copeland
Belgrade Pride 2015
Photo by Mehmet Akın
In recent years, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans* (LGBT) rights have become increasingly salient within the EU enlargement process as a so-called litmus test for Europeanness, yet the promotion of such norms has provided a fulcrum for political contestation. Based on this observation, this thesis asks how do the EU and a candidate country negotiate LGBT-related normative tensions which have been created as part of the overarching political integration process? By taking into account the international symbolism of LGBT norms, it is suggested to move away from a classical approach to Europeanisation in which the impact of the EU on a third country is examined, towards a more dynamic conceptualisation of the EU enlargement process in which norms are inherently contested, and a resolution to normative struggles are required to advance political integration. Drawing on the critical scholarship on normative power Europe, this thesis rejects a uni-directional (top-down) understanding of EU enlargement in which the EU transplants its rules and norms to candidate countries, while proposing a complex multi-dimensional conceptualising in which different hegemonic struggles and normative tensions come together in a multi-layered normative struggle with its own tensions. How these tensions are negotiated is empirically studied in the context of the European integration process of Serbia (2001– 2015). Using process tracing, which draws on 89 semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participant observation, this thesis analyses the promotion of and resistance to LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination legislation and the organisation of LGBT Pride Parades in Belgrade. Overall, the thesis introduces the concept of ‘Tactical Europeanisation’ to highlight that the EU accession process is better thought of as a process of negotiated transformation in which EU policies and norms are (re)defined, negotiated and transformed with both sides making compromised to further the political integration. It calls for a more critical analysis of the civilizational politics embedded in the EU enlargement process that goes beyond institutional changes to include an analysis of transnational configurations of politics and the complex (negotiated) outcomes they produce.
This thesis was awarded the 2018 UACES Prize for Best PhD Thesis in Contemporary European Politics
"The judges praised the great care given to pay attention to details of the argument, triangulate findings and present these in a easily accessible way that is duely attentive to the complexity of information conveyed. They considered the thesis a highly valuable and forward-looking contribution to debate in the area of Europeanisation, as well as in the case study area of Western Balkans." (UACES, 2018)
Koen's PhD was also shortlisted for the ECPR Joni Lovenduski PhD Prize in Gender and Politics.
The selection committee commented:
"We have particularly appreciated the tremendous fieldwork you have done in Serbia, and we were fascinated by the contribution your dissertation makes to advancing knowledge in sexuality studies and political science about a country that has remained unfortunately neglected in mainstream research. The committee also particularly liked the topicality of your empirical research both regarding the advancement of LGBT rights and regarding the Europeanisation process.”
"The judges praised the great care given to pay attention to details of the argument, triangulate findings and present these in a easily accessible way that is duely attentive to the complexity of information conveyed. They considered the thesis a highly valuable and forward-looking contribution to debate in the area of Europeanisation, as well as in the case study area of Western Balkans." (UACES, 2018)
Koen's PhD was also shortlisted for the ECPR Joni Lovenduski PhD Prize in Gender and Politics.
The selection committee commented:
"We have particularly appreciated the tremendous fieldwork you have done in Serbia, and we were fascinated by the contribution your dissertation makes to advancing knowledge in sexuality studies and political science about a country that has remained unfortunately neglected in mainstream research. The committee also particularly liked the topicality of your empirical research both regarding the advancement of LGBT rights and regarding the Europeanisation process.”
EU Enlargement and Gay Politics: The Impact of Eastern Enlargement on Rights, Activism and Prejudice (Book Project)
With Heleen Touquet and Peter Vermeersch
This book offers a well-investigated and accessible picture of the current situation around the politics of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights and activism in Central Europe and the Western Balkans in the context of the enlargement of the European Union (EU). It provides not only thoughtful reflections on the topic but also a wealth of new empirical findings — arising from legal and policy analysis, large-scale sociological investigations and country case studies. Theoretical concepts come from institutional analysis, the study of social movements, law, and Europeanisation literature. The authors discuss emerging Europe-wide activism for LGBT rights and analyze issues such as the tendency of nationalist movements to turn ‘sexual others’ into ‘national others,’ the actions and rhetoric of church actors as powerful counter-mobilizers against LGBT rights, and the role of the domestic state on the receiving end of EU pressure in the field of fundamental rights.