Dissense über sexuelle Differenz in Serbien und Kroatien. Eine qualitative Dispositivanalyse postjugoslawischer Massenmedien (2009-2013) und quantitative Sekundärdatenauswertung der European Values Study (2008) zu Homophobie im Westbalkan

Martin Mlinarić’s monograph compares ambivalent discourses on sexualities in Serbia and Croatia. The work centres around a qualitative discourse analysis of an impressive data corpus that includes text and video materials from the mass media. This is supplemented by a quantitative secondary analysis of the European Value Study 2017 with regard to homophobia in both countries. The book is divided in six chapters of which the first three provide a contextualisation of homophobia and the transformation processes in the region. The subsequent chapters comprise a discussion of the analytical framework as well as the interpretation and discussion of first the quantitative and second the qualitative analysis.

With regard to the value orientation study, Mlinarić concludes that a majority of respondents, both in Serbia (68%) and Croatia (58.2%), can be categorised as homophobic or follow more prohibitive values with regard to sexual difference. In Croatia, however, a transformation towards more permissive stances can be identified when it comes to female, younger (especially 25-34 years old), wealthier and better-educated persons. This does not hold for Serbia where no significant difference can be identified among different gender, class or age groups. The author provides an explanation that in my view however lacks rigour: the persistence of homophobic values (or generally more traditional values) among Serbia’s 25-34 years old, he argues, is due to Serbia’s international isolation and the crisis before and after the NATO bombardment of 1999. From his perspective, these contexts presumably decelerated a modernisation of values, especially if compared to Croatia. This interpretation however wrongly assumes that the orientation towards permissive stances in Croatia has been essentially prompted by Western European influences. The author thereby neglects the presence and development of feminist and queer activism in both countries before the so-called transition.^[1]

The qualitative analysis of the mass media paints a differentiated picture with regard to the dominance of homophobic stances. It is designed as a dispositif study. Following Michel Foucault, Mlinarić understands a dispositif as a strategic apparatus that reacts to an ‘urgent need’, an emergency in a given power-knowledge nexus. The author regards a dispositive further as an ‘uncontrollable, dynamic game of fixation […] of partial and temporal closings, and openings’ (116). He seeks to investigate this ‘game’ with regard to sexuality and homophobia in Serbia and Croatia, embedding the related negotiations in the context of post-socialist transformation and Europeanisation. In particular, he seeks to analyse the modes, i.e. discourse strands and fragments, and outcomes, i.e. possible materialisations of different positions of the dispositif.

Mlinarić identifies three ‘modes of (in) tolerance’ (326) that are represented in the mass media by different actors, which he assigns to a permissive, a prohibitive and an analytical strand. While the first two are equally represented, the analytical strand is rather marginal in both countries. Nevertheless, all three strands share common ground. They are all linked by their references to sexual difference as a question of pluralism, Europe, tolerance, anti-discrimination—hence to questions of democracy. Mlinarić then compares the most dominant discourses. Though Croatia and Serbia do not differ much, there are some nuances in the prohibitive and the permissive thread. The author argues as follows: for both Croatia and Serbia the most dominant fragments of the permissive strand are ‘democracy and transition’ as well as ‘improvement of the legal situation’ (328). By contrast, in Croatia the permissive strand mostly criticises the role of the church, whereas in Serbia it is violence against the LGBTIQ that is most strongly condemned (329).

The prohibitive thread in Croatia concentrates on issues of the ‘public morale’—arguing for example that there are more pressing issues than the concerns of a small minority. In Serbia prohibitive discourses are more often linked to ‘hate speech’ as well as stances against legal equality (331). The author shows how the mass media allow for the representation of permissive stances despite the dominance of prohibitive value orientations in both countries. He views this balanced presence of permissive and prohibitive strands in mass media however as a mis-representation of the everyday situation, which is conducive to a kind of passive tolerance (Erlaubnis-Toleranz, 344) with regard to sexual difference. The result is a somehow partial inclusion of sexual difference in Croatia and Serbia, mainly as the heterosexual form of living and loving is fixed as a norm in the ‘game of opening and closing’.

I found the monograph very interesting, however sometimes hard to read. Hence, more attention could have been paid to the structure and style in order to make its content more accessible. Still, I recommend it to students and researchers of political science, sociology and particularly to readers who are interested in discourses and politics of sexuality and gender in the post-Yugoslav context. Especially the results of the mass media discourse analysis show well how homophobic discourses have shifted from marking sexual minorities as ‘sick’ or ‘abnormal’ to fixing them as ‘intolerant’ and ‘totalitarian’ as these allegedly want to push forward issues that do not concern ‘the people’ but merely a minority (344). This is an interesting outcome that corresponds with analyses of anti-genderism/ anti-LGBTIQ discourses. Although the book pays little attention to the role of sexuality discourses beyond its function as a marker of modernity (Modernitätsmarker, 100) the results provide insightful hints that move beyond. Particularly, Mlinarić sketches well how normative gender and sexuality constructions have been central to processes of nationalisation and national identity building—something that adds valuable evidence to what feminist scholars have pointed out both for the post-Yugoslav contexts and more generally.