Gender, Violence and Democracy in Western Balkans

The main objective of the project "Gender, Violence and Democracy in West Balkan" is to develop deeper understanding and dissemination of the knowledge of gender relations in West Balkan. The project is a cooperation between The University of Montenegro, The Institute for European Studies in Serbia and The Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research at the University of Oslo. The objective will be achieved through research, educational activities, publications and development of teaching programs. The umbrella project consists of the following part-projects: 1) Men, masculinities and violence in post-socialist societies - a comparative analysis of Serbia and Montenegro, 2) Gender inequality and women's health in Montenegro and 3) Women's political mobi lisation in Montenegro. A common theoretical frame for the part-projects is the conceptual model of structural, symbolic and personal meanings of gender. The model has been developed to analyse the workings of gender as well as the workings of power and violence. The symbolic level refers to how gender based on dualistic gender metaphors is symbolically represented in existing cultural products as well as constructed and reproduced through everyday use by individual women and men. The structural level r efers to the gendered divisions of activities and how organisations are structured with more or less explicit references to dualistic gender metaphors. The individual level refers to how gender is constructed based on gender symbols and gendered division of activities. The historical legacy is a gender contract based on the idea of complementarity of inequality. Men were, for historical reasons, perceived as warriors, while women were seen as subordinate assistants for men and as caregivers. The project will address how the recent situation relates to this historical legacy. The part-projects will in different ways contribute to the understanding of symbolic, structural and personal meanings of gender and violence in the context of today's West-Balkan: