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Feminist Encounters in Statebuilding: The Role of Women in Making the State in Kosovo

05 December 2024, 5:00 pm–7:00 pm

Bok cover for 'Feminist Encounters in Statebuilding'

A SSEES Southeast European studies seminar co-organised by the BISA South East Europe Working Group. This will be an online event.

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

SSEES

Rather than simply showing how the state in Kosovo is being built by and through women and feminist encounters, this volume is interested to problematise women and feminist subjectivities vis-à-vis the state and statebuilding. The book challenges three main arguments related to the processes and subjects of statebuilding in Kosovo. First, the academic literature on Kosovo has a tendency to take the international intervention of 1999 as the originary point of statebuilding processes in Kosovo. Second, and relatedly, given Kosovo's unprecedented exposure to Western intervention and statebuilding, the majority of works start from the presumption that liberal interventionism in Kosovo (and elsewhere) is normatively more progressive than the previous system, and that the liberal interventionism and statebuilding are naturally gender progressive and gender-equal. The third argument has to do with the existing legal architecture on gender and women’s rights in contemporary Kosovo. The aim of the volume is to, on the one hand, problematise the evidence against the backdrop of everyday manifestations and/or performances of statebuilding and on the other hand interrogate the co-constitutive gender aspect. In terms of methodology, the volume brings together contributions that rely on traditional and multi-sited ethnography, and narrative research rooted in projects and initiatives in Kosovo. This allows the contributors to unearth new and silenced actors, entry points, subjects and subjectivities in processes of and related to statebuilding in Kosovo; feminist frictions and challenges to statebuilding in Kosovo; as well as encounters of heteronormative statebuilding.

The event is co-organised by SSEES in collaboration with the BISA South East Europe Working Group.

About the Speakers

Itziar Mujika Chao

Itziar Mujika Chao teaches at the Department of Political Science, and is member of the Hegoa Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). She holds a Ph.D in Development Studies from the UPV/EHU, and obtained her Masters in International Studies and Women, Gender and Citizenship Studies at the UPV/EHU and the University of Barcelona, respectively. Dr. Mujika Chao’s research focuses on gender politics of violent and nonviolent conflict, civil resistance, post-conflict peacebuilding and development, feminist activism, and the implementation of the United Nations’ Security Council Women, Peace and Security agenda in the Balkans, more specifically in Kosovo.

Vjosa Musliu

Vjosa Musliu is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the VUB. Her research interests include international and European interventions, conflicts and international political economy. Her area of focus is primarily the Balkans and post-Soviet space. She is a co-editor of the Routledge Series of Studies in Intervention and Statebuilding and co-founder of Yugoslawomen+ Collective 

She was previously a post-doctoral researcher of the FWO at the VUB and her project dealt with Europe and Europeanization as performative acts in everyday events. Prior to joining our team at VUB, professor Musliu has been a postdoc at the Conflict and Development Department of Ghent University, and a lecturer at Kent University – Brussels School of International Studies.