Europe ♥ Gays? Europeanisation and Pride Parades in Serbia

The litmus test of pride: analysing the emergence of the Belgrade “Ghost” pride in the context of EU accession

“…The presented findings also have important implications for the Europeanisation of LGBT rights literature. Similar to the work of Bilić (2016a;2016b), the article has challenged the prevailing notion that the EU accession process has been a force of good for post-Yugoslav…”

Comparative queer methodologies and queer film festival research

“…We decided to include Brno as well as Prague because Brno was the city where the festival originated in 2000, and we wished to understand the role of the festival beyond the metropolis in a different regional context, in a smaller city, as so much critical attention has been devoted to queer film festivals in large metropolitan areas; reflecting the dominance of large metropolitan areas within historical and geographical research on sexualities more widely which has been a source of ongoing critique within the geographies of sexualities and beyond (Binnie, 2014;Brown, 2008;Myrdahl, 2013). (Bilić, 2016). Organisers of Merlinka stressed that the festival had passed off peacefully, in marked contrast to the Pride marches which in recent years, either been banned, or only taken place with mass deployment of riot police (Bilić, 2016, Mikus, 2011.…”

“…(Bilić, 2016). Organisers of Merlinka stressed that the festival had passed off peacefully, in marked contrast to the Pride marches which in recent years, either been banned, or only taken place with mass deployment of riot police (Bilić, 2016, Mikus, 2011. Unfortunately, in February 2014, a few months after we interviewed the festival director, Predrag Azdejković, he and two others were assaulted by masked attackers at the Sarajevo edition of the festival.…”

Visualising the politics of appearance in times of democratisation: An analysis of the 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade television coverage

“…As others have detailed, whilst supportive voices from the European Parliament and western NGOs might have had good intentions in embedding sexual minorities' rights in the language of Europeanisation, such linkages worked to cast the LGBT population as 'other' to those who considered themselves 'true' Serbs, and worked to justify their homophobic attitudes as loyal patriotism (Bilić 2016;Stakić 2015). Stakić (2015: 184) argues that Serbian right-wing extremists are not only associated with the violent attacks and direct threats to the…”