Representation of Gender Minority Groups In Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro
03 September 2015–04 September 2015, 1:00 pm–4:00 pm

Event Information
Location
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UCL, SSEES, 432 (Fourth Floor)
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The research for this project is situated within the interdisciplinary context of media and gender studies with a particular focus on social and cultural practices of exclusion/inclusion of gender minority groups in the Western Balkans.
We conceive of the media as a radically potent
discursive practice, deeply rooted in the decentralized and multifaceted
network of power relations within the boundaries of the social and
political body. The discourse of the media gains its power most
paradigmatically through continuous interaction with other social
discourses with which it organizes a stratified and relatively
hierarchized field of mutual intersections and supporting points. Thus
specific attention within the research is directed to the policy
discourse on gender minority groups dealing with media freedom, hate
speech, human rights, and discrimination. The term “gender minority
groups” (further in the text GMG) in our research refers not only to
LGBT population but also to doubly marginalized and therefore especially
vulnerable GMG such as Roma lesbian women, LGBT disabled population,
impoverished transsexuals etc.
Both
in Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans the most frequently
conducted research on GMG deals with public opinion on GMG and their
rights (Takas; Kuhar&Takas). Research in the Western Balkans is
mostly conducted within the NGO sector (Juventas, CEMI, Anima, LGBT
Forum progres in Montenegro; Coalition SHRMC, in Macedonia; Labris,
Ažin, E8, Gay alijansa in Serbia) or by international organizations
(European Commission reports, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights),
while very few serious academic studies dealing with the issue of media
representations of GMG have been conducted in the region
(Dimitrov&Kolozova). Existing research points out that discursive
production deploys several main strategies, including:
hyper-sexualization of non-heterosexuality, masculinization and
westernization of GMG, othering GMG as a part of the process of the
normalization of heteronormative identities, normalization of
non-normative GMG, pathologization of GMG and de-legitimization of GMG
activism. Our research adds to this understanding by incorporating a
discourse analysis of media representations of gender minority groups.
Such an analysis, while dealing with gender stereotypes in the media
(Dayer), also deals with those questions of media literacy which have
yet to be asked in the Western Balkans – which mechanisms generate
gender minority stereotypes and how those stereotypes are perceived in
societies with a low level of media literacy. The research confronts
media mechanisms and argumentation through which the state apparatus,
public institutions and certain interest groups sensitize the public
opinion to the discrimination and disregard towards representatives of
GMG. We also explore how such practices of social exclusion impact the
rights of other minority groups as well as the suspension of civil
rights of all citizens in general, and try to indicate which mode of
promotion of GMG rights could be the most successful.
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