June. Pride Month. I was very excited to attend the annual Pride in Sarajevo this year as part of my second field trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I had the opportunity to exchange views with people about their opinions and experiences regarding the rising anti-gender discourses in BiH and to demonstrate together with my friends from BiH for LGBTIQ+ rights. During this trip, I also had the opportunity to speak with additional relevant experts, mainly representatives from governmental institutions, about policies concerning gender equality and related legal developments. These interviews have once again been very informative and will be useful for my goal of identifying anti-gender frames in policies and legislative measures, and interpreting these by drawing on further documents as well as parliamentary debates.

Starting the fieldwork involved not only Zoom-calls with relevant actors but the first trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 2025. The goal was to meet and interview relevant individuals from academia, activism, and NGOs to gain an understanding of the most important developments in gender equality, LGBTIQ+ rights, and general human rights issues. Both has been extremely helpful in gaining an initial understanding of the policy landscape and current challenges.

During the past weeks, I have been moving towards the next phase of the project: the broader context analysis for Bosnia and Herzegovina. This part of the work focuses on mapping gender, sexuality, and family-related policies, and combines two main activities: reviewing secondary literature and speaking with experts who work directly on anti-discrimination and equality issues in BiH.

Although I often speak of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is important to emphasise that, for analysing policies and political developments, one must consider the sub-state level.

I am happy to have started started my MSCA project on Anti-Gender mobilisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in September. With this blog I want to share my research journey and give insights into my research process but also recent developments in BiH regarding gender and LGBTIQ+ issues.