Queer Perspectives for Subverting Academic Writing on Former-Yugoslavia and Bosnia

This discussion departs from Mišo’s previous work, drawing links to topics fleshed out within the Peripheral Visions project, of peripherality and subjectivation. We discuss various overlapping and intersecting practices of peripheralization that have been introduced or reinforced by academia and how this has created gatekeeping concepts out of the trauma of people of former-Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina. We then talk about Mišo’s more recent and current work that looks at queer perspectives on subverting these various problems through everyday lived experiences of defiance and creating shared moments of joy. We discuss the common elements that can define an understanding of Yugoslavia today – reflecting on the solidarity, anti-fascist, and anti-colonial core of non-alignment – as well as the hope that lied at the core of both non-alignment and the project of (the 2nd) Yugoslavia. Through this, we link to notions discussed in previous talks in this series of Yugofuturism and hope as a form of resistance in times of catastrophism and perspectives of technopolitics of care.

This audio episode is part of Peripheral Visions.