Dr. Ana Miškovska Kajevska

(1976, Skopje)

Programme Manager at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam

 

Emma Goldman Awardee 2021

Author of Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s 

(2017, New York & London: Routledge), nominated for the

Joseph Rothschild Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies 2018

Winner of the 2015 ECPR Gender and Politics PhD Prize

Fellowships

• Visiting researcher, Blinken Open Society Archives, Budapest (Report on the visibility of the feminist engagement against war rape during the (post-)Yugoslav wars)

• Junior Visiting Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna

I received a PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam in March 2014 for the dissertation titled “Taking a stand in times of violent societal changes: Belgrade and Zagreb feminists’ positionings on the (post-)Yugoslav wars and each other (1991–2000)”. Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s is an abridged version of my dissertation. 

I graduated cum laude in Sociology (minor: Gender, Sexuality and Culture) from the University of Amsterdam. In my thesis “Communists, Feminists and Nationalists: A Journey into the Former Yugoslavia (1941-1991)”, I explored the development of the women’s and ethnic issue in Yugoslavia. I had previously finished the programmes in Women’s Studies and Peace Studies in Zagreb. My extensive activist experience mainly addresses human rights and liberties, and environmental issues. I speak fluent Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Dutch, English, and Macedonian (native), average French, and I read Bulgarian, German and Slovenian.

Publications

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2021). Book review of Chiara Bonfiglioli (2019). Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector. London etc.: I.B. Tauris. In: European Journal of Women's Studies, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 290-293.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2020). ‘Kako se delevme vo vreme na KOVID-19?’ [How We Divided Ourselves in the Time of COVID-19?]. In: Bliznakovski, J. & Todorov, P. (eds.) Nie nasproti drugite: Simbolički podelbi vo Severna Makedonija [We versus the Others: Symbolic Divisions in North Macedonia]. Skopje: Centar za istražuvanje na nacionalizmot i kulturata.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2020). Response to Marina Hughson's review of Ana Miškovska Kajevska, Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s, published in Aspasia 13 (2019): 216-222. In: Aspasia, The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History, vol. 14, pp. 210-215.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2020). Book review of Juliet Millican (ed.) (2018). Universities and Conflict: The Role of Higher Education in Peacebuilding and Resistance. London & New York: Routledge. In: Higher Education Research & Development, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 621-623.
  

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2019). Book review of Zsófia Lóránd (2018). The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in Yugoslavia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. In: Aspasia, The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History, vol. 13, pp. 212-213.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2018). ‘A Foe of Democracy, Gender and Sexual Equality in Macedonia: The Worrisome Role of the Party VMRO-DPMNE’. In: Politics and Governance, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 55-66.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2018). ‘Suspending Democracy, Harming Gender Equality: The 2013 Law on Pregnancy Termination in Macedonia’. In: Verloo, M. (ed.) Varieties of Opposition to Gender Equality in Europe. New York & London: Routledge.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2017). Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s. New York & London: Routledge. 

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2016). ‘Jača represija, jači otpor: LGBT aktivizam i evropeizacija u Makedoniji’. U: Bilić, B. (ur.) Preko duge u Evropu: LGBT aktivizam i evropeizacija na prostoru bivše Jugoslavije. Beograd: Centar za kvir studije.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2016). ‘Growing Oppression, Growing Resistance: LGBT Activism and Europeanisation in Macedonia’. In: Bilić, B. (ed.) LGBT Activism and Europeanisation in the Post-Yugoslav Space: On the Rainbow Way to Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2016). ‘Biografske karakteristike i ratni stavovi: beogradske i zagrebačke feministkinje 90-ih godina XX veka’ [Biographical Characteristics and War-Related Positionings: the Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s]. In: Sekulić, N. & Radoman, M. (eds.) Feministički forum Filozofskog fakulteta: izabrani radovi iz studija roda. Beograd: Sociološko udruženje Srbije i Crne Gore & Institut za sociološka istraživanja Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu. 

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2015). ‘Stvaranje i prelaženje linija podjele: antiratni stavovi beogradskih i zagrebačkih feminističkih aktivistkinja devedesetih’ [Creation and Crossing of Dividing Lines: the Antiwar Positionings of the Belgrade and Zagreb Feminist Activists in the 1990s]. In: Bilić, B. & Janković, V. (eds.) Opiranje zlu: (Post)jugoslavenski antiratni angažman. Zagreb: Dokumenta, Kuća ljudskih prava & Jesenski i Turk.

• Miškovska Kajevska, A. (2015). ‘Diskriminacija, neznaenje, stigmatizacija i fatalizam. Analiza na tretmanot na koristenjeto na drogi i živeenjeto so HIV vo nekolku učebnici po sociologija, pedagogija i etika’ [Discrimination, Ignorance, Stigmatisation and Fatalism: Analysis of the Portrayal of Drug Use and Living with HIV in Several Textbooks on Sociology, Pedagogy and Ethics]. In: Drndarevska, D. (ed.) Koristenjeto drogi i živeenjeto so HIV vo obrazovanieto. Analiza na tretmanot na korisnicite na drogi i licata koi živeat so HIV vo srednoto i visokoto obrazovanie. Skopje: Koalicija ‘Seksualni i zdravstveni prava na marginaliziranite zaednici’.

Varia

• In December 2020 I participated in an online panel on the gendered and the gendering aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Western Balkans, organised by the British Council.

• At the 2018 ASN European Conference I was shortly interviewed about my book. The longer interview, which I gave to the New Books Network, can be listened to here.

• My analysis of the undemocratic process which led to the adoption of a restrictive abortion law in North Macedonia in June 2013 is available in English and Macedonian. To find out why I see the termination of pregnancy as a brave assumption of responsibility, please visit the platform Global Voices (besides in English, the article is available in Arabic, French, Greek, Italian, Malagasy, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish). In September 2016, I participated in Skopje in a debate on the right to abortion in North Macedonia (watch the recording here).

• I discussed my doctoral research in the interviews to the Croatian portal STav and the Serbian daily Danas, as well as in the presentation at the Belgrade-based Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. My observations about the worrying lack of (publicly accessible) archives of the Belgrade and Zagreb feminist groups can be found on the Croatian portal VoxFeminae.net. An excerpt of my essay in Bilić & Janković (2015) was published in the Croatian weekly Nacional.

• In March 2015, I presented my initial findings on the LGBT activism in North Macedonia at a workshop in Budapest (watch: Part 1 and Part 2). In May 2015, I was a guest of the Skopje-based Radio MOF, where I spoke on the connection between the Macedonian LGBT activism and the antigovernmental protests in the country. The show, called STR8OUT, can be listened to here.

Short summary of my PhD research

“Taking a stand in times of violent societal changes: Belgrade and Zagreb feminists’ positionings on the (post-)Yugoslav wars and each other (1991–2000)”

My dissertation explores the positionings (discourses and activities) of the Belgrade and Zagreb feminists vis-à-vis the (post-)Yugoslav wars and one another between 1991 and 2000. Primarily applying a Bourdieuian framework and based on a comprehensive literature review, extensive semi-structured qualitative interviews, and a thorough examination of organisational documents and printed media articles, this socio-historical analysis attends to a number of biases, lacunae and incorrect or insufficiently precise (recurring) information in the scholarship. Thereby, this thesis enriches the existing knowledge on the war-related feminist activism in Belgrade and Zagreb in the 1990s, and raises pressing epistemological questions about this knowledge.

In short, I challenge the common suggestion that the outbreak of the war violence in 1991 led to the same reorganisation of the Belgrade and Zagreb feminist fields, i.e. that the activists in each city, who had up until then worked together without tensions, divided into antinationalists and nationalists and began clashing with each other because of the different war-related positionings. I show that there were significant differences between Belgrade and Zagreb in the contents of those positionings and in the intra-feminist dynamics, due to which these two cities should not be considered interchangeable locations. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the designations ‘antinationalist’ and ‘nationalist’ were not completely value-free, objective descriptions. They were instead an essential part of the local and international efforts to stop the (sexual) war violence, and of the struggle for legitimacy among the feminists in each city – endeavours in which many Western (feminist) academics, activists, and funders were involved, too.

The research was primarily funded by the Mosaic programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Additional financial support was provided by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR).