Category Archives: Voices

In Search of Women Photographers in Twentieth-Century India

March 7, 2025
By 31414

Exploring the largely hidden history of early women photographers in India, Sreerupa Bhattacharya (Jadavpur University, 2018) follows traces of their work to uncover the contributions they made in shaping the art and practice of photography on the subcontinent.

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In an 1898 issue of Amrita Bazar Patrika, one of the leading daily newspapers in colonial Bengal, appeared an advertisement for a well-known photo studio, emphasizing the availability of “female artists” to photograph women. A lady behind the lens meant that elite women could have their photographs taken without inviting anxieties about being seen unveiled by men in public. It is, however, not known if these “artists” were necessarily only photographers or also those involved in tinting and retouching photographs.

Notwithstanding, it is significant that photography emerged as a source of employment for European as well as native women at the turn of the twentieth century. When the first all-women’s studio in India was established in 1892 to exclusively serve a female clientele, it recruited “native female assistants” who were led by an Englishwoman. These examples attest to women’s prolific presence in a range of photographic works at a time when they were yet to become key players in the many other technology-led industries in colonial India.

My doctoral research examines women’s photographic practices in early- to mid-twentieth-century India and their rediscovery in contemporary times, with a focus on questions of labor, materiality, and representation. Recent curatorial and scholarly interests in twentieth-century Indian women behind the lens have largely focused on family and domestic photography. My project seeks to build on this scholarship by moving away from the biographical approach and mapping individual practices onto the larger discourse of photography. The purpose is not only to recover little-known lives and their contributions but also to expose marginalized objects, sites, and networks through them in order to potentially reconfigure the photo history in the subcontinent and expand our understanding of photography in turn.

Footnotes in Photo History

Women, until recently, have been footnotes in the grand narrative of the history of photography in India that has mainly dramatized the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized, emphasized the peculiarly Indian character of photography, and celebrated its pioneering male figures. The “native female assistant” remained nameless, for instance, in the several monographs on the work of Lala Deen Dayal, the eminent photographer who established the photo studio in which these women worked.

In his 2008 book The Coming of Photography in India delineating the sociocultural, political, and philosophical implications of the arrival of the camera under the Raj, art historian Christopher Pinney mentions a set of calotypes and photograms by an unknown female photographer. Made in the 1840s, they are significant as the earliest extant photographs of India. Yet, she receives no more than a passing reference. Perhaps no more than that is possible since institutional archives bear only traces of such women’s presence.

Rather than bemoan such absences, my project explores them as speculative nodes to flesh out the figure of the woman behind the lens. One of the imperatives of the project, thus, is to delineate the discursive forces, historically and in the contemporary, that have constituted the figure of the woman photographer in India.  

New Insights from Revisiting the Archives

Many of the photography journals, pamphlets, and illustrated magazines published in twentieth-century India are currently housed in institutions across the United States and Europe. Perhaps the most capacious among these is the British Library in London, where Desmond Ray, the deputy keeper of the India Office Library and Records, consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s both images and documents related to photography in India.

The Sylff Research Grant allowed me to explore the British Library collection in great detail during my two-month-long stay in the UK. The other archives and institutions I visited included the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Cambridge South Asia Centre, Birkbeck College, the University of London, and the Courtauld Institute of Art. In each of them, I found librarians, archivists, and professors who provided extraordinary insights into my project, greatly enhancing my understanding of the nebulous photographic landscape in India and in other parts of the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

 

The Photography and the Book Room of the Photography Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, September 2024. Photo by the author.

Parsing through different kinds of documents—letters, periodicals, photographs, and news reports—led me to glean names of individuals, organizations, and activities that suggest a scattered but persistent presence of women photographers. They reveal new constituencies of photo practitioners that expand the contours of received histories.

Departing from the recent focus on amateur practices centered on the family, home, and travels, my archival research revealed a discursive emphasis on photography as an occupation for women throughout the twentieth century. Photography emerged as one of the few technology-led activities that could easily make the transition from pastime to profession.

Women photographers thus marked their presence in photo studios, at political rallies, in exhibitions, and behind editorial desks. With cameras in hand, they not only made aesthetic interventions but also exposed the fault lines in the discourse of photography. While much of contemporary scholarship revolves around individual practices, revisiting the archives enabled me to reorient the focus to a matrix of material relations that reveal the history of photography in India as gendered work.

 

From the series Centralia, 2010–2020, by Poulomi Basu, on display at the Photography Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, October 2024. Photo by the author.

A Global Phenomenon

Besides conducting archival research, I was fortunate to be able to participate in workshops organized by scholars, artists, and critics at the forefront of global photography studies today. A joint initiative by the Victoria and Albert Museum and Birkbeck College for doctoral students called “Researching on, and with, Photographs” proved invaluable in exploring the wide range of contemporary scholarly work on the political and aesthetic purchase of historical photography. A talk on British photographer Jo Spence’s collection was insightful in thinking about feminist articulations of art and activism. It also raised questions about how to preserve and display such works, meant for public engagement, within formal institutional structures.

The sessions held at the V&A Photography Centre also offered glimpses into the early processes in the development of photography, the formation of the institution’s photography collection, and its current decolonial efforts. It gave me the opportunity to discuss the museum’s recently developed women in photography collection, which contains a wide range of photographs made in the British colonies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The workshop and the ongoing projects at the museum foregrounded the renewed interest in the study of women behind the lens. Just in the past five years, there have been major conferences and exhibitions on twentieth-century women photographers in North America, Europe, and Asia. My project gains greater resonance amidst such efforts at rediscovering and reevaluating twentieth-century women’s photography around the world.

Populism’s Mitigated Potency in Japan and Implications for Mature Democracies

February 25, 2025
By 31407

Despite Japan’s economic struggles, populism has made limited electoral impact. Jiajia Zhou (Columbia University, 2017) explores how the local organizational strength of incumbent parties mitigates the effectiveness of populist rhetoric and, in doing so, may facilitate the pursuit of electorally challenging policies.

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Populism is an endogenous offshoot of representative democracy. It is a rhetoric that appeals to shared grievances among the electorate, blames representative elites, and in this process “[takes] advantage of democracy’s endogenous discontent with the domineering attitude of the few over the many” (Urbinati 2019, 119).

What is surprising about populism today is not its presence but its potency—that the basic claims of extreme majoritarianism capture the hearts of enough voters to make waves in electoral outcomes. Some scholars have opted to view populism as a strategy employed by political actors to mobilize “large numbers of mostly unorganized followers” (Weyland 2001, 14). This aligns with the origin of populism as a concept coined to differentiate electoral politics dominated by charismatic leaders in Latin America from class-based mobilization in European democracies (Roberts 2015, 144).

However, this definition magnifies the present condition while overlooking a key question, that is, why has the anti-elite claim come to amass so much electoral influence in democracies where elections used to be anchored in various loci of organized support? Part of the answer lies in the weakening geographical strength of political parties in mature democracies.

Resisting Populism at the Local Level

Japan serves as a case study to test this theory. Japan, in particular, is a democracy where populism has the potential to succeed. Since the 1990s, Japan’s economy has observed at best tepid growth. More recently, South Korea, whose economy developed later than Japan, has achieved a higher nominal GDP per capita. Not only has Japan’s economic status been shaken, but its weakening yen has also spurred an unfamiliar and trying experience of inflation for its electorate.

Although Japan lacks the presence of an immigrant population large enough to fuel nativist sentiments, democracies with similar ethnic compositions, such as Hungary, show that this alone does not preclude the influence of populism; economic ills can suffice to trigger populist support. Why, then, has populism had a relatively limited impact on elections in Japan?

One factor may be that local, organized support retains its electoral clout. My SRG research identified two sources of evidence for this. First, I revisited an episode of populism in national politics in 2005, when then Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) dissolved the lower house of the National Diet and called for an electoral referendum to overturn the upper house’s rejection of his postal privatization bill. The landslide victory demonstrated the potential for populism in Japan, as Koizumi’s anti-elite framing of opposition within his own party—as “forces of resistance” (teiko seiryoku) pursuing “vested interests” (kitokuken)—succeeded in reversing trends in falling voter turnout and secured a two-thirds majority for the LDP and coalition partner Komeito.

Prime Minister Koizumi announcing his party’s election platform calling for the privatization of postal services. ©Junko Kimura / Getty Images

Notably, though, the contests were especially challenging in divided districts where LDP candidates, mostly new blood, were assigned to compete against ex-LDP incumbent candidates who had opposed the postal bill and been stripped of their party’s endorsement.

Even though 51 LDP lower house members resisted Koizumi’s postal bill, only 37 members voted against it, and they were either expelled or ordered to leave the party. The 14 others who abstained or were absent from the vote retained their party affiliation (Shukan Asahi 2005; Asano 2006). Among the 37 who lost their LDP affiliation, 34 ran in the election, and exactly half were reelected.

Analyzing voting patterns across municipalities, I found a negative relationship between the LDP’s organizational strength and its vote gains. Specifically, in areas where the LDP was organizationally stronger, countermobilization by politicians in those districts drew significant votes away from the party. Even though Koizumi’s market-oriented postal privatization policy aimed to benefit urban voters by promoting productive investment, postal opposition candidate Seiko Noda, for example, successfully drew votes away from the LDP, winning reelection in Gifu’s first district covering the prefectural capital of Gifu City.

In another case, Ryozo Ishibashi, an LDP prefectural assembly member in the city of Hiroshima, entered the lower house race to oppose postal privatization and split LDP votes, drawing support away from the party in his district.

By contrast, in districts where the LDP was organizationally weaker and local conservative politicians had for several years been distancing themselves from the LDP, the decisions by these local mobilizers to support postal reform led to large increases in vote share, such as in Shizuoka’s seventh district.

Populism’s Impact on the 2024 Election

Second, I examined populism’s potency in the most recent lower house elections in October 2024 through an online survey experiment involving respondents from all 47 prefectures in Japan. In the survey, respondents were presented with a description referencing recent episodes of the political funds scandal, followed by hypothetical campaign excerpts from a non-LDP conservative candidate.

Respondents were randomly assigned one of two possible campaign messages. The first adopted a populist frame linking current economic woes to the collusive and corrupt LDP politicians who served vested interests over the interests of the people. The second similarly emphasized current economic woes but stressed party turnover and a change of government to strengthen policies as the solution. After reading the message, respondents were asked to indicate their support for the hypothetical candidate.

The experiment yielded evidence for the strong role played by local party representation, that is, the incumbent party’s organizational reach in local areas and role in politically fulfilling local needs.

First, the experiment found higher candidate support when respondents were exposed to populist messaging. This trend was stronger among respondents reporting weaker trust in political institutions, a pattern similar to that of populist support in European countries. However, unlike in Europe, populist support was not particularly strong among respondents residing in areas facing demographic decline or among those reporting economic insecurity in rural areas.

Instead, populist support was stronger among respondents reporting stronger feelings of representation at the municipal level and whose municipal representatives were non-LDP politicians. It was also stronger in prefectures with lower ratios of LDP party membership for each single-member electoral district.

Additional questions examining respondents’ attitudes revealed higher levels of nativist sentiments—where respondents perceive foreigners as a threat to local culture—in municipalities with higher ratios of foreign to local residents. This relationship is distinct from the inflow of tourists, which does not fuel nativist sentiments.

Importance of Local Organizations in Resisting Populist Rhetoric

These results suggest that the lack of populist support in Japan is not the result of unique resistance against the phenomenon but the geographical strength of its incumbent party organization. The idea that political party organization matters is not new to political science research (e.g. Katz and Mair 2018). But the results here reveal how, and in what ways, the incumbent party organization matters against the populist challenge.

My research also shows that the penetration of political party organizations in local electoral districts facilitates countermobilization and increases voter-level resistance against empty populist rhetoric that is devoid of policy relevance. This finding complements studies in other democracies that have identified the important effects of local mobilization but have emphasized the mobilizational effects of populist forces, such as in Sweden (Loxbo 2024).

The local electoral arena remains a salient theater for competition between incumbent and challenger parties. Ideological competition among central parties using party platforms and ideology is not a democratic ill. However, vulnerability to populism grows when attention at the center eviscerates the party of its local organization and overlooks the local arena.

This is not to imply that Japan presents a model of healthy democracy. Rather, it shows that populism, as an anti-elite appeal to majoritarianism, arises from not only commonly cited economic factors but also weak incumbent political party organization.

More broadly, there has been increased scholarly attention to the role of social media, warranted by increased reliance on information received through these platforms. Yet, even if social media has become the primary battleground for the electoral offensive, local areas remain critical flanks where electoral organization and representation matter. Strengthening these local organizational structures is essential if mainstream parties in countries like Japan wish to pursue electorally challenging policies, such as expanding immigration inflows.

References

Asano, Masahiko. 2006. Shimin shakai ni okeru seido kaikaku: Senkyo seido to kohosha rikuruto. Keio University Press.

Katz, Richard S., and Peter Mair. 2018. Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199586011.001.0001.

Loxbo, Karl. 2024. “How the Radical Right Reshapes Public Opinion: The Sweden Democrats’ Local Mobilisation, 2002–2020.” West European Politics 0 (0): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2024.2396775.

Roberts, Kenneth M. 2015. “Populism, Political Mobilizations, and Crises of Political Representation.” In The Promise and Perils of Populism: Global Perspectives, edited by Carlos de la Torre, 140–58. University Press of Kentucky.

Shukan Asahi. 2005. “Jiminto zohan 51 giin, kaisan de konaru: Koizumi dokatsu hatsugen no daigosan.” August 5.

Urbinati, Nadia. 2019. “Political Theory of Populism.” Annual Review of Political Science 22 (1): 111–27. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-070753.

Weyland, Kurt. 2001. “Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics.” Comparative Politics 34 (1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/422412.

Death and Dying Preferences in China and among Ethnic Chinese US Residents

February 3, 2025
By 30592

A comparative study of end-of-life care preferences among Chinese populations in China and the United States conducted by Yifan Lou (Columbia University, 2019, 2022) reveals shared cultural values influencing end-of-life care decisions, despite differing societal contexts and healthcare systems.

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Death and dying are profound issues that are shaped by cultural, societal, and policy factors. People often assume that the experiences of dying, death outcomes, and end-of-life care decisions—such as opting for hospice care and forgoing treatments—are largely determined by the societal structures and policy frameworks of where individuals live. However, death and dying rituals are deeply cultural, and individuals within the same ethnic groups may share fundamental beliefs and values, even when they are in different environments.[1] The shared cultural perspectives, moreover, can lead to comparable end-of-life care choices and,[2] consequently, similar dying experiences, regardless of societal or policy differences.

I studied Chinese older adults as an entry point to understand how different social contexts and life experiences impact preferences for a “good death” and end-of-life outcomes for individuals with shared cultural roots.

There are approximately 1.5 billion people of Chinese ethnicity living around the world, with about 12% of them aged 65 and older.[3] Ensuring a “good death” for this rapidly growing demographic is becoming an increasingly critical public health priority. However, a key question remains: do Chinese people living in different parts of the world—in Western and Eastern countries—share similar perceptions, wishes, and choices regarding end-of-life care, decision-making, caregiving, and family communication?

 

Working as a social worker in a nursing home four years ago inspired me to conduct this research.

I was privileged to receive a Sylff Research Grant (SRG) that enabled me to explore this topic through a comparative project. I examined the end-of-life care experiences of Chinese individuals in China and the United States—two countries with distinct cultural, social, and healthcare contexts. By investigating these populations, I hoped to shed light on how cultural values, social circumstances, and life experiences (such as immigration versus remaining in the home country) influence older adults’ death and dying experiences. The findings can be critical for policymakers seeking to develop healthcare and palliative care strategies that respect the diverse values, traditions, and preferences of older adults, ensuring their end-of-life experiences align with their cultural beliefs and desires.

With the SRG award, I was able to conduct a series of mixed-method studies examining end-of-life care experiences among Chinese populations in China and the United States. These studies included one qualitative and one quantitative study focused on Chinese individuals in China, as well as a quantitative study of Chinese older adults in the United States. This research yielded findings with which I was able to make two conference presentations with manuscripts in preparation at the Gerontological Society of America’s Annual Scientific Meeting in November 2024 and to draft another manuscript currently under review.

Decisional Conflicts among Family Members

In the first study, I built relationships with community-based healthcare agencies in Shanghai and Beijing providing hospice and palliative care to older adults. I conducted fieldwork alongside these agencies, collecting and analyzing qualitative data on the experiences and perceptions of end-of-life care among older adults, caregivers, and healthcare providers. The study focused on how societal-level factors influence these end-of-life care experiences. Using a multi-level ecological perspective, I sought to shed light on the specific challenges and stressors that family caregivers face when navigating end-of-life care, particularly for individuals living with cognitive impairment.

A hybrid grounded theory approach was used to guide the analysis. Five key themes emerged from the data pointing to multi-level challenges and stressors, framed by social ecological theory. At the individual and interpersonal levels, emotional exhaustion due to decision-making was a prominent theme, especially when caregivers faced communication barriers regarding necessary decision-making paperwork during frequent emergency room visits. Caregivers of individuals with dementia also encountered unique decisional conflicts, often involving disagreements among siblings and uncertainty about the validity of the expressed wishes of those in advanced stages of dementia.

At the mezzo level, a common theme centered around the stigma associated with hospice care for dementia patients, in contrast to the more widely accepted notion of such care for individuals with cancer. Specialized care for dementia symptoms is often viewed as unnecessary or as overtreatment, and the sending of older parents with dementia to hospital-based hospice care—since home-based hospice care is rarely available in China—is considered a violation of filial piety. This stigma often prevents caregivers from seeking appropriate services and support for their dying loved ones. On the macro level, the lack of disease-specific end-of-life resources emerged as a significant challenge. This gap in resources often results in long waiting lists and rising service costs, making it difficult for caregivers to find care that aligns with the specific needs of older adults with different conditions (such as dementia, cancer, and heart failure).

Pain Management in End-of-Life Care

The lack of palliative care and effective pain management is a recurring theme in qualitative studies, and this prompted me to question whether this is a widespread issue for older adults across China. However, generalizing these findings requires nationally representative data. Fortunately, during my fieldwork in Beijing, I connected with a team of interdisciplinary researchers who share similar interests and conducted the first national longitudinal survey of end-of-life care among Chinese older adults.

Through this collaboration, I was able to complete my second study, in which we examined the prevalence of pain and its association with place of death and pain management in the context of urban-rural differences, using data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey. Our sample included 958 decedents aged 60 and above, and we employed logistic regression models for analysis.

Our findings revealed that 26.4% of decedents did not receive timely and effective pain treatment, and 66.5% of families were unable to manage the decedent’s pain. Additionally, 41.96% of decedents experienced severe pain symptoms. Rural residents, those with severe pain, and those who died at home were more likely to forgo adequate pain treatment compared to their urban counterparts. Urban-rural differences emerged where rural older adults with severe pain and those who died at home were less likely to receive timely and effective pain treatment than urban older adults. In urban areas, severe pain symptoms and place of death were significantly associated with receiving appropriate pain management, but this was not the case in rural areas.

This quantitative study supports and extends the qualitative findings, highlighting the urgent need to improve pain management and address disparities in end-of-life care, particularly in rural China.

As noted in the previous qualitative study, many older adults in China do not communicate their wishes for future care to their family members. As a result, family members often face the stressful task of making end-of-life decisions without knowing their loved ones’ preferences and are left uncertain whether any wishes expressed earlier are still valid—particularly if illness has progressed to the point of cognitive impairment.

This raises the question: Are similar gaps in end-of-life care planning present among older, ethnic Chinese adults in the United States, despite the availability of various social policies (such as Medicare benefits for end-of-life care planning) and advocacy programs?

US Trends Mirror Those Seen in China

To address this, I attended networking workshops at gerontology conferences and got connected with a group of researchers who conducted the first population-based study on Chinese immigrants in the United States and have been collecting end-of-life, care-related data since 2021. By working with them, I was able to access this data and start my third study.

We referred to the Population Study of Chinese Elderly in Chicago (also called the PINE Study) to investigate the prevalence and preferences of end-of-life care planning, along with associated sociodemographic and health determinants among older Chinese Americans.

Linear and logistic regressions were conducted to analyze the data. Our findings showed that 46.1% of participants considered end-of-life care planning to be important or somewhat important, yet only 22% had discussed their end-of-life preferences with family members. The most preferred locations for end-of-life care were home (43.7%), hospital (35.5%), and nursing home (10.1%), with only 4.3% preferring hospice care. In terms of decision-making, 47.1% viewed end-of-life care as a family decision, 39.6% saw it as a personal decision, and 7.5% and 3.3% preferred their children or spouses to make decisions on their behalf, respectively.

Our analysis also revealed several factors associated with greater engagement in end-of-life planning, namely, older age, female gender, higher education, greater acculturation, higher levels of religiosity, and more chronic health conditions. These factors were similarly linked to a greater likelihood of having end-of-life care discussions with family members.

Our findings highlighted a low level of engagement in end-of-life care planning among Chinese older adults in the United States, mirroring trends observed in China, despite the availability of more resources and advocacy programs in the United States. This underscores the need for culturally appropriate interventions that respect the diverse preferences for end-of-life care among Chinese older adults in both countries to improve preparedness and decision-making at the end of life.

Next Phase of Research

These SRG-funded pilot studies have laid the groundwork for my next phase of research, which will involve a larger-scale comparative analysis of end-of-life care preferences among Chinese populations in Western and Eastern countries. I am currently compiling the data and developing a plan to conduct a formal statistical population comparison study. This line of research holds significant societal implications for populations worldwide that share similar cultural values and migration histories.

 

End-of-life care for older adults of Chinese ethnicity.

Additionally, these studies underscore the shared cultural foundations among Chinese communities across different social contexts in relation to preferences for end-of-life care and decision-making, despite the unique challenges and needs that arise in each country. This suggests that interventions that have proven effective among Chinese populations in the United States can also be adapted for use in China and raises the possibility of implementing cost-effective interventions across different settings.

This SRG-funded work has broad research implications, as it paves the way for further comparative studies among other ethnic groups to explore whether cultural preferences remain consistent when individuals migrate to or reside in different countries. If such patterns hold true, it could lead to more efficient and scalable interventions tailored to diverse cultural contexts, ultimately improving end-of-life care for various ethnic communities worldwide.

Notes

[1] Megumi Inoue, “The Influence of Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Factors on Advance Care Planning,” Journal of Gerontological Social Work 59, no. 5 (2016): 401–22.

[2] Yifan Lou and Jinyu Liu, “Death Narrative in 19th-Century China: How Did Newspapers Frame Death and Dying,” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 84, no. 2 (2021): 634–52.

[3] Dudley L Poston Jr and Juyin Helen Wong, “The Chinese Diaspora: The Current Distribution of the Overseas Chinese Population, Chinese Journal of Society 2, no. 3 (2016): 348–73.

Integrating Technology for Efficient Justice Delivery in South Africa

January 22, 2025
By 28866

Leon Poshai (University of the Western Cape, 2020) examines the challenges and benefits of digitalizing South Africa’s judicial system. The electronic submission of court documents would enhance efficiency, transparency, and access, but full adoption is being hindered by cybersecurity concerns and limited ICT skills among some users.

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The aim of my SRG study was to analyze the challenges and prospects associated with the implementation of digitalization in South Africa’s justice delivery systems and to propose measures for addressing obstacles to the effective adoption of digital capabilities in the judicial sector. I conducted qualitative, exploratory research targeting participants in the litigation process from whom anecdotal data was collected through semi-structured interviews.

Efficient, transparent, and timely delivery of justice is a pivotal concern for the South African government (Ntengenyane and Masenya 2022). In interviews with study participants, I learned that the government of South Africa has moved swiftly to revamp the justice delivery system by transforming it from analog to digital through the adoption of an online digital case management system called CaseLines (formerly known as Court Online).

©simpson33 / Getty Images

The system was introduced by the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court in January 2020 to enable litigants to file and upload documents electronically during court proceedings. This has ushered in opportunities to digitalize court proceedings and create pathways for expedient and transparent justice delivery in South Africa (Teffo and Chuma 2023).

Minimizing Red Tape

CaseLines is a cloud-based, e-filing system. An interviewed legal practitioner commented that the system offers litigants the opportunity to instantaneously process and submit litigation documents to relevant courts for review. CaseLines was designed to facilitate the filing, storage, and retrieval of court files and, in the process, minimize red tape (Ntengenyane and Masenya 2022).

Study participants indicated that the platform allows registrar clerks and other court officials, as well as court secretaries and administrators, to keep track of cases conveniently and efficiently. An interviewed participant noted that the CaseLines system alerts litigants about scheduled hearings and reviews through emails or short messages. 

CaseLines enables court judges and legal practitioners to document legal evidence and prepare for trials expeditiously. Litigants can prepare for a case online before adjudication, helping to avoid delays in the litigation process.

Interviews with participants revealed that CaseLines has also improved the safety of legal documents, since they are stored in a secure and encrypted database, ensuring that files are not misplaced or lost. They noted that CaseLines offers greater convenience in justice delivery, as it allows applicants and plaintiffs to prepare and upload court case documents without the need for physical visits.

Enabling Remote Adjudication

In many divisions of the High Court in South Africa, particularly in Pretoria and other major cities, CaseLines has led to an overhaul of the case management and legal administration systems. I learned through this study that in cities like Durban, Polokwane, and Cape Town, CaseLines has provided the High Court with the technological tools to refine the internal workflow process, enhancing transparency and accountability in justice delivery. Study participants noted that since the adoption of the CaseLines system, the internal judicial review process has been strengthened, fostering trust among users and resulting in democratized justice accessibility.

Interviewees also noted that CaseLines was particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing courts to remotely adjudicate cases despite restrictions on in-person gatherings. When the president declared a state of national disaster in 2020, all divisions of the High Court were directed to use the CaseLines platform, reversing the traditional practice of not allowing electronic documents for litigation purposes and enabling courts to easily manage the inflow of cases (Teffo and Chuma 2023).

South Africa has continued its efforts post pandemic to strengthen the use of technology in its litigation system. Justice delivery in South Africa has become more convenient and flexible for litigants living far away, as court hearings can now be conducted through video conferencing. Nevertheless, the use of online court hearings remains optional, as judges can decide whether a matter should be adjudicated virtually or in person. Thus, hybrid court hearings comprising both physical and virtual attendance are permissible. Generally, virtual hearings are more prevalent in South Africa because of the convenience they offer to litigants.

Addressing Cybersecurity, Digital Literacy Challenges

However, there are many contextual challenges that have derailed the full digitalization of the South African justice delivery system. Firstly, there is fear among some litigants that if they use the CaseLines system, their personal data can be stolen by hackers, given the rise in cybercriminal activities in South Africa and many other parts of the world.

I learned through interviews that not every litigant is comfortable with using CaseLines because of the fear of invasion of personal privacy. Some worried that their data may be tampered with by cybercriminals and that this may result in them losing important evidence for their defense. Thus, there is a need for robust cybersecurity to guard against unauthorized access.

Interviewed participants stated that they would be more inclined to use the system if they are convinced that the information stored on the cloud is safe. The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act or POPIA) is one legislative measure adopted to ensure the protection of personal information from unwarranted access.

Secondly, there is resistance to change by some litigants due to their lack of ICT skills. Some interviewed participants complained that they needed to hire someone to upload their documents, compromising the privacy of the documents and resulting in additional costs. To enable all citizens to make use of digital governance systems like CaseLines, the government of South Africa is making computer literacy training part of the educational curriculum from the elementary to tertiary levels.

Additional challenges include the digital divide, limited internet connectivity in some parts of the country, and general lack of ICT devices. Some participants revealed that they do not own smartphones, which makes it difficult for them to get updates. Substantive investments in ICT infrastructure would thus be needed to ensure that everyone in the country has universal access to ICT resources and internet connectivity, as well as to the greater convenience, transparency, efficiency, and flexibility promised by the digitalization of the South African justice delivery process.

 

References

Teffo, Dikeledi and Kabelo Given Chuma. 2023. “Management of Electronic Records to Support Judicial Systems at Temba Magistrates’ Court in the North West Province of South Africa.” Journal of the South African Society of Archivists 56: 35–54.

Ntengenyane, Khunjulwa, and Tlou Maggie Masenya. 2022. “The Management of Digital Court Records for Justice Delivery in the South African High Courts.” Mousaion 40 (3): 1–17.

Thessaloniki: Exploring the History and Society of an Ancient City in Macedonia

January 16, 2025
By 27750

Thessaloniki, a historical city with deep Hellenistic and Roman roots, offers a unique lens into ancient Macedonian society. Georgios Athanasiadis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 2019) used an SRG award to conduct an extensive prosopographical analysis of the city’s inhabitants by studying the inscriptions held by various archaeological museums.

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Thessaloniki is a Greek city in central Macedonia founded in 316–15 BC by Kassandros, one of the diadochi (generals) of Alexander the Great. In the Hellenistic period, it was an important center of the Antigonid kingdom, and later, in Roman times, it was selected as the capital of the province of Macedonia and became a free city (civitas libera) (Haensch 1997).

The epigraphic harvest of the city yields around 1,600 inscriptions mentioning more than 3,000 persons. The aim of my doctoral research is to create a prosopography of the city and a thorough study of its society, focusing on the period from its foundation until its selection by Galerius as his seat of government in AD 299. The prosopographical catalogue will provide a full list of Thessalonicans, with each entry being accompanied by a bibliography and a short commentary on the person’s life based on the primary sources.

Evidence for each person, including name category, legal status, occupation, and relationships, is being recorded on a specifically designed online database and will be used in the second part of my thesis to describe the structure of and the changes in the local society of the period under examination.

Need for an Updated Prosopography

The selection of this topic was made for two main reasons. The first was my interest in the history and epigraphy of Macedonia, a peripheral area of the ancient Greek world that has been more systematically studied in the last three decades. The city of Thessaloniki, in particular, is of special importance as a new royal city of the Hellenistic period, evolving after the Roman conquest into a major center of the Roman province of Macedonia. The status of the city as capital, its port, and the Roman-built Via Egnatia road connecting the Adriatic to the Aegean contributed to its multiethnic population, consisting of citizens of other Macedonian cities, people from the Greek East, Romans, Jews, and Christians (Allamani-Souri 2003; Adam-Veleni 2011). These features made the local society an interesting case study worth investigating.

Autopsy of an inscription at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (study of the text and the letter form).

The second reason for my interest was that a prosopography of Thessaloniki is missing, and scholars can only draw on an out-of-date Macedonian prosopography that was published in 1955 and supplemented in 1967. Recent excavations have significantly increased the number of inscriptions from Thessaloniki, though, and the publication of a supplement to the initial corpus makes a study like mine not only possible but also necessary. Works by other scholars have enriched our knowledge of various aspects of ancient Thessaloniki, such as its private associations (Nigdelis 2006, 2010) and elite families (Nigdelis 1996; Bartels 2008). However, a systematic study of the local society is a desideratum in scholarship (Zoumbaki 2009, 809–10), since several questions remain unanswered, and some issues require reexamination.

In the first two years of my research, I gathered relevant source materials and have almost completed the compilation of the prosopographical catalogue. This entailed studying 1,000 inscriptions from Thessaloniki and other areas where Thessalonicans are known to have lived (such as Thebes, Delos, Samothrace, and Smyrna). Most of these inscriptions have already been published, mainly in the two corpora dedicated to Thessaloniki (Edson 1972; Nigdelis 2017), but I have also studied a small number of unpublished inscriptions that are mentioned without transcription in archaeological reports. Apart from inscriptions, literary sources and papyri were also used, both as testimonies for Thessalonicans and as sources for the history of the city in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

In the case of inscriptions, the transcriptions of all names were checked through photos and squeezes (in the archives of the Institute of Historical Research/NHRF) or autopsies of the monuments. The SRG award was crucial for this purpose, since it financed five epigraphic missions to Thessaloniki, Beroia, Thebes, and Chalcis, during which I studied inscriptions kept in the archaeological museum of each city. I also had the opportunity to study documents in the Historical Archive of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, which offered valuable information on the discovery and the provenance of many inscribed monuments.

Shedding New Light on Thessalonican Society

My research has so far yielded several interesting findings that have shed light on the society of Roman Thessaloniki, some of which I have presented in postgraduate conferences and articles. The reexamination of the inscriptions and the autopsies have led to new readings of names, which were either misread by or not visible to former researchers. Some inscriptions have also been redated based on epigraphic (e.g., letter form) and archaeological or prosopographical (e.g., identification of the same person or relatives in different inscriptions) evidence.

Making a squeeze of an inscription at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.

In addition to this, the reconsideration of former identifications has shown that some of them have been inaccurate. For example, a prominent benefactress from Thessaloniki had been identified with a poetess attested in Thespies mainly because they bore the same—rather popular—name. A reappraisal of the available evidence has shown, however, that the two women lived two centuries apart. The identification proposed must thus be abandoned.

Finally, similar observations have required the reconstruction of the stemma (genealogy) of some Thessalonican families so that the correct relationships are depicted. In the next two years, following the completion of the prosopographical catalogue, I plan to analyze and interpret the data, using statistical methods where appropriate, to determine patterns and describe features of Thessalonican society. It is hoped that my thesis will cover a gap in the literature on ancient Thessaloniki and will serve as a reference work for scholars studying the history of the city and ancient Macedonia in general.

I would like to extend my thanks to the Ephorates of Antiquities and especially the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki for the permission to study inscriptions from their collections as well as their assistance throughout my research.

References

Adam-Veleni, P. 2011. “Thessalonike.” In R. J. Lane Fox (ed.) Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon: Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 BC–300 AD, 545–62. Brill.

Allamani-Souri, V. 2003. “Ιστορικό διάγραμμα της αυτοκρατορικής Θεσσαλονίκης από επιγραφικές και αρχαιολογικές μαρτυρίες.” In Δ. Β. Γραμμένος (ed.) Ρωμαϊκή Θεσσαλονίκη, 80–91. Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Θεσσαλονίκης.

Bartels, J. 2008. Städtische Eliten im römischen Makedonien. De Gruyter.

Edson, C. 1972. Inscriptiones Graecae, X. Inscriptiones Epiri, Macedoniae, Thraciae, Scythiae. Pars II: Inscriptiones Macedoniae. Fasc. 1: Inscriptiones Thessalonicae et viciniae. De Gruyter.

Haensch, R. 1997. Capita provinciarum: Statthaltersitze und Provinzialverwaltung in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Zabern.

Kanatsoulis, D. 1955. Μακεδονική προσωπογραφία (από του 148 π. χ. μέχρι των χρόνων του Μ. Κωνσταντίνου) (Ελληνικά, Παράρτημα 8). Εταιρεία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών.

Kanatsoulis, D. 1967. Μακεδονική προσωπογραφία (από του 148 π. χ. μέχρι των χρόνων του Μ. Κωνσταντίνου) Συμπλήρωμα. Εταιρεία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών.

Nigdelis, P. 1996. “Geminii und Claudii: Die Geschichte zweier führender Familien von Thessaloniki in der späteren Kaiserzeit. ” In A. D. Rizakis (ed.) Roman Onomastics in the Greek East: Social and Political Aspects. Proceedings of the International Colloquium organized by the Finnish Institute and the Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, Athens 7–9 September 1993, 129–41. Κέντρον Ελληνικής και Ρωμαϊκής Αρχαιότητος/Εθνικόν Ίδρυμα Ερευνών.

Nigdelis, P. M. 2006. Επιγραφικά Θεσσαλονίκεια. Συμβολή στην Πολιτική και Κοινωνική Ιστορία της Αρχαίας Θεσσαλονίκης 1. University Studio Press.

Nigdelis, P. M. 2010. “Voluntary Associations in Roman Thessalonike: In Search of Identity and Support in a Cosmopolitan Society.” In L. Nasrallah, C. Bakirtzis, and S. J. Friesen (eds.) From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonike: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, 13–47. Harvard University Press.

Nigdelis, P. M. 2017. Inscriptiones Graecae, X. Inscriptiones Epiri, Macedoniae, Thraciae, Scythiae. Pars II: Inscriptiones Macedoniae. Fasc. 1: Inscriptiones Thessalonicae et viciniae. Supplementum primum: Tituli inter a. MCMLX et MMXV reperti. De Gruyter.

Zoumbaki, S. 2009. Review of Π. Μ. Νίγδελης, ’Επιγϱαφιϰά Θεσσαλονίϰεια. Συμβολὴ στὴν πολιτιϰὴ ϰαι ϰοινωνιϰὴ ιστοϱία τῆς ὰϱχαίας Θεσσαλονίϰης. Latomus 68(3), 808–10.

Rightly Guided Leaders: The Role of Religion in the Political Ideology of Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

January 8, 2025
By 29256

Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have strategically used religion to shape their political ideologies and establish unchallenged power in Hungary and Turkey. Tamas Dudlak (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2021) introduces his groundbreaking comparative study on how their religious discourses reflect and influence their political systems.

*     *     *

As part of my SRG 2023 research project, I compared the role of religion in the political ideology of contemporary Hungary and Turkey. Over the last decade, there has been a growing interest in illiberal governance systems, primarily concerning Hungary and Turkey (Bremmer 2018; Economist 2018). Beyond superficial comparisons of these illiberal states, however, the similarities and differences between the lengthy political careers of Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and their respective ideologies have not gained much academic attention.

Recently, both Orbán and Erdoğan have utilized the same power techniques to maintain their unchallenged leading position in their respective countries: their strategy can be characterized by changes to the electoral system, excessive media control, defamatory campaigns against political competitors (Jobbik and HDP parties, respectively), aggrandizement of internal-external enemies (Soros-Brussels and Gülen-Washington, respectively), and emphasis on identity politics (nationalism and religious mobilization).

The careers of the two leaders represent the main patterns of political evolution in Hungary and Turkey after the Cold War. Both Orbán and Erdoğan followed global political ideologies (liberalism and nationalism, though in different forms) and utilized them in different periods of their careers. And then, around the economic crisis in 2008, they shifted their political focus to populism, nationalist ideals, and religiosity (Christianity and Islam, respectively), thereby challenging the foundations of the liberal and secular democratic systems in their respective countries.

While attempts have been made in the literature to define the religious foundations of the two systems (institutions, movements, parties, and belief systems), the religious discourse of Orbán and Erdoğan has not been addressed in depth and comparatively. Despite the growing literature on populism, illiberalism, and authoritarian tendencies in the “Western periphery,” there is a lack of context-sensitive analysis of the religious ideas expressed by Orbán and Erdoğan.

The Shaping of the Religious Narrative

To fill this gap, I conducted research to compare the circumstances that shaped the religious narrative of the two leaders. The goal was to acquire an empirical understanding of how religious discourses have been formulated by politicians in Hungary and Turkey over the last decade and a half and what underlying factors (historical and geopolitical) and current circumstances (legislative background and the domestic and foreign political environment) shape the outcome of governmental decisions (political practice) and discourses (political theory).

By explaining the differences and similarities, I hope to shed light on the essential characteristics of these systems and to arrive at a better understanding of the evolution of the religious discourses utilized.

St. Stephen’s Basilica, completed in 1906, is the largest church in Budapest.

I focused on the Hungarian and Turkish governmental “mainstream” religious discourse after 2010 to determine how the leaders of these political systems thematize Christianity and Islam in their political agenda (identity, national goals, moral values, and humanitarianism). The empirical part of the research examined how the two leaders, Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, perceived the role of religion in their formative years and how religion later came to inform their political views.

As a matter of general or theoretical inquiry, I compared how illiberal governments conduct their religious discourses. Are Turkey and Hungary going in the same direction in their respective religious policies, for example, utilizing religion for counter-Europeanization or anti-Westernism and supporting a distinctive civilizational identity?

The underlying narratives were examined by discourse and content analysis. For this purpose, I focused on the official statements and speeches of Orbán and Erdoğan. The central position of the leaders can be explained by their dominant role in constituting the current political systems in Hungary and Turkey. In countries where populist politics thrive, the charismatic leader gains greater importance in the political arena.

Similar Patterns

Commonalities between the careers of Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are evident. Both grew up in the peripheries (countryside) of secular political systems with nondemocratic characteristics (socialism and Kemalism, respectively), yet religiosity played an essential role in their early lives. Later, their success was related to their ability to mobilize critical voices against these secular regimes; consequently, they were elected as reformists and became advocates of liberal democracy during their early political life (in the 1990s and 2000s).

Around the economic crisis in 2008, though, they gradually shifted their political focus to populism, nationalist ideals, and religiosity (Christianity and Islam, respectively), thereby challenging the foundations of the liberal and secular democratic system. Instead of following the path for which they had previously advocated, both leaders launched a rhetorical campaign against the West and its institutions and, at the same time, started to give greater attention to the East and South in their foreign and identity policies.

Two paradigm shifts can be identified in the political careers of Orbán and Erdoğan. These brought a new set of views and political theory to political practice. To put it differently, both leaders reorganized and rephrased the basis of their political legitimacy many times, using similar patterns, as follows:

Erdoğan

Orbán

Shifted first from an Islamist politician to a moderate Islamist (with liberal elements) and then transformed into a Muslim nationalist (with authoritarian elements).

Was a petty bourgeois with a conservative background (prior to embarking on political career), embracing liberal thinking as a university student and initially as a politician. After becoming well-established, he drove his party to conservativism and religiousness and bracketed the issue of democracy in practice (illiberalism).


Orbán’s party, Fidesz (originally Fiatal Demokraták Szövetsége, or Alliance of Young Democrats), came to power in 2010 with a firm policy against the liberal elite, having earlier led a coalition government between 1998 and 2002. Once in power, Orbán continued the fight against external and internal elites. After weakening the domestic liberal elite, Orbán’s political struggle has increasingly transformed into a campaign against the influence of foreigners. The most striking example is his ongoing confrontation with the EU and the so-called “values of the Western elites.”

A similar pattern can be observed in the case of Erdoğan. Even though Erdoğan’s party, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or Justice and Development Party), has been in power since 2002, he increasingly emphasized the unifying nature and cultural importance of the Turkish identity and Islam to a Turkish public disillusioned with the EU accession process. Although initially popular with Western leaders, Erdoğan’s rhetoric toward Turkey’s Western allies slowly gave way to criticism as Turkish democracy failed to consolidate, and authoritarian tendencies in Turkey deepened. And as Erdoğan fell out of grace, he increasingly interlinked the domestic opposition to certain external forces of the West that allegedly tried to overthrow him as Turkey’s “legitimate leader.” This anti-liberal and anti-Western narrative created a revanchist style of populism based on the dichotomic worldview that Western civilization and Islam are incompatible (Kaya et al. 2019, 7–8).

Geopolitical Liminality

Beyond the direction of political development, the geopolitical status of Hungary and Turkey also has some similarities. Geopolitical liminality is the main characteristic of the two, even if Hungary became an “insider” as an EU member while Turkey remained a relative “outsider” of the European project and the continent itself (ww and Kutlay 2017, 1). Therefore, it might be more precise to say that while Hungary is on the periphery of the West, Turkey is on the periphery of Europe. Turkey is on the periphery of the Middle East and the Islamic civilization, while Hungary is on the southeastern flank of Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, and Lutheranism), surrounded by the “Orthodox civilization.”

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was originally built as a church, then converted to a mosque before serving as a museum between 1935 and the summer of 2020. Since then, it has been reconverted to a mosque.

This in-betweenness makes these cases interesting from a religious point of view, since the geopolitical positions of Turkey and Hungary postulate highly contested and confrontational identity formations.

Despite the commonalities between the two leaders and their respective political systems, the crucial question is why and how Orbán and Erdoğan sometimes departed on a different path. In the light of global political tendencies, the interesting puzzle lies in how the two leaders define the nature and aims of their respective political systems through the language of religion.

My research, I believe, can contribute to the literature in two ways. The comparative work is the first of its kind and can thus shed light on the essential characteristics of these political systems and better identify the main themes of the respective religious discourses. The findings can also open a new area of research, leading to a fuller understanding and theorization of how illiberal governments design their religious discourses and build policies around certain religious ideals.

 

References

Bremmer, Ian. 2018. “The ‘Strongmen Era’ Is Here. Here’s What It Means for You.” Time, May 3. https://time.com/5264170/the-strongmen-era-is-here-heres-what-it-means-for-you/.

Economist. 2018. “How Democracy Dies. Lessons from the Rise of Strongmen in Weak States,” June 16. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/06/16/lessons-from-the-rise-of-strongmen-in-weak-states.

Kaya, Ayhan, Max-Valentin Robert, and Ayşe Tecmen. 2019. “Populism in Turkey and France: Nativism, Multiculturalism and Euroskepticism.” Turkish Studies 21 (3).

Öniş, Ziya, and Mustafa Kutlay. 2017. “Global Shifts and the Limits of the EU’s Transformative Power in the European Periphery: Comparative Perspectives from Hungary and Turkey.” Government and Opposition 54 (2).

EDI Rhetoric and the Experiences of LGBTQ+ International Students in Canada

December 10, 2024
By 31445

The experiences of LGBTQ+ international students in Canada point to a complex web of challenges, writes Fatemeh Gharibi (York University, 2020), from discriminatory immigration and academic policies to revenue-motivated promises of inclusion, highlighting contradictions in the country’s equity, diversity, and inclusion rhetoric.

*     *     *

Over 7 million students in higher education globally hold international status, a number growing due to globalization and the evolution of the “knowledge economy” (Corkum 2017, 110; Trilokekar et al. 2020, 9). In response to rising anti-immigrant sentiments and political shifts to the right, Canada has introduced caps on international students, impacting both current and prospective students (IRCC 2024). These restrictions, alongside recent price surges and housing crises blamed on migrants, disproportionately affect international students, particularly those with temporary status in Canada (Hamilton & Su 2024). Marc Miller, Canada’s minister of immigration, announced in 2023 that international student caps would also affect students already in the country, impacting admission, work permits, and other vital aspects of their stay.

LGBTQ+ international students face additional challenges, influenced by changes in immigration policies and the social climate regarding LGBTQ+ rights, which affect their quality of life and access to resources. Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment has also been rising in Canada, with legislation such as Bill 137 in Saskatchewan, which mandates parental consent for minors to use a different gender-related name or pronoun at school, sparking concerns for LGBTQ+ students who came to Canada for a more accepting environment (Marshall 2021; Corkum 2017). Research shows that anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies often intersect with other bigoted beliefs and far-right politics, impacting LGBTQ+ international students disproportionately (Dietzel et al. 2023).

As a queer, racialized international student, I find Canada’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) rhetoric contradictory, given the exploitative nature of its immigration and education systems, which create precarities for marginalized groups. Economic-driven research on international students, often criticized as “reductionist,” fails to fully capture the lived experiences of these students (Tavares 2021a, 5). To address this gap, I conducted a systematic literature review of 100 sources from 2000 to 2024, exploring the experiences of LGBTQ+ international students and the intersection of university internationalization, EDI priorities, and their impacts on these students.

The review revealed that while migration offers LGBTQ+ students opportunities for self-exploration, it also exposes them to unique challenges, including discrimination based on intersecting identities like race, sexuality, status, and nationality. For these students, access to resources is limited compared to their domestic counterparts. The commercialization of education for international students, moreover, conflicts with EDI’s goals. EDI is often used as a marketing tool to portray Canada as inclusive while treating diversity as a commodity to attract students who are then exploited as revenue sources. This dual focus on profit and diversity branding highlights the contradictions in EDI policies in capitalist countries like Canada, which may appear inclusive but prioritize revenue generation over actual support for international students’ well-being.

“We Reject Your ‘Use and Throw’ Policy.” Day 45 (October 13, 2024) of protests in Brampton, where former international students have been camping outdoors to draw attention to recent policy changes in Canada.

International LGBTQ+ Students’ Experiences

The term “international student” is often homogenizing, lumping together people from diverse backgrounds; my research centers on students from the Global South in Canada, highlighting voices lacking the privileges of white, Western counterparts. For LGBTQ+ international students, migration can be a space for identity exploration (Corkum 2017; Nguyen et al. 2017; Oba & Pope 2013), but these students also encounter challenges within Canada’s racial and colonial hierarchies, affecting them through discriminatory immigration and academic policies (Yao et al. 2019; Lee 2019; Stein & de Andreotti 2016). Two key literature areas address these students’ experiences.

The first area focuses on “identity development” and cultural challenges in “coming out,” exploring dual cultural influences of home and host countries, and the need for culturally sensitive support (Nguyen et al. 2017; Quach et al. 2013; Oba & Pope 2013). This literature notes the complexity of disclosure due to family, cultural beliefs, and the legal status of LGBTQ+ rights in home countries (Nguyen et al. 2017, 113–14). However, by centering on cultural differences, it sometimes neglects broader power structures, racial issues, and the historical spread of homophobia via colonization, as well as recent anti-LGBTQ+ backlashes in the Global North.

The second area explores how racism, nationalism, and colonialism impact queer migrant bodies and create precarious statuses (Marshall 2021; Corkum 2017; Lee 2019). Concepts like “homonationalism” in Canada reveal how some queer identities, especially white ones, are embraced by the state, reinforcing inequalities (Puar 2017; Marshall 2021). Corkum (2017, 124) specifically highlights the disillusionment faced by LGBTQ+ international students who confront values favoring their white, Canadian-born peers, which can hinder their belonging and relegate racialized queer students to marginal spaces. My present study aligns with a “holistic” approach (Tavares 2021a), focusing on lived experiences and challenging systemic barriers.

There remains a gap in research on how issues like gender and sexuality affect broader challenges like housing, employment, health, and social services access. The current literature on LGBTQ+ international students largely prioritizes identity while overlooking trans-specific experiences, disabilities, and relationship with land, with only brief mentions of nationality and status.

Implications of Internationalization and EDI

Internationalization is a high priority at 95% of Canadian universities (AUCC, cited in Stein & de Andreotti 2016, 230), driven by neoliberal economic shifts and global politics. De Wit et al. describe the four rationales for this trend as “political, economic, socio-cultural, and academic” (cited in Guo & Guo 2017, 853). Though academic internationalization ideally integrates international perspectives into education (Jane Knight, cited in Das Gupta & Gomez 2023, 73), it often becomes a “marketing strategy” aimed at revenue generation, with international students paying higher fees to make up for public funding cuts (Guo & Guo 2017, 851; Das Gupta & Gomez 2023; McCartney & Metcalfe 2018).

EDI strategies in Canada were introduced post-1970s as responses to civil rights movements and neoliberal immigration priorities, framed by multiculturalism and human rights (Das Gupta & Gomez 2023, 72). EDI policies help market Canadian education as inclusive, particularly to students of color from the Global South, positioning Canada as tolerant and benevolent. However, EDI can reinforce Western dominance by perpetuating a global hierarchy where the West is always positioned as superior (Stein & de Andreotti 2016, 226).

While EDI and internationalization are priorities for Canadian universities, their revenue-driven approaches often undermine true equity for international students, leading to contradictions in policies and practices (Buckner et al. 2022, 39; Tavares 2021b, 2). The focus on generating income through recruitment can overshadow equitable treatment and inclusion for these students. The following section will further explore international students’ experiences of EDI in educational settings.

EDI Strategies and International Students

Few studies have investigated EDI strategies concerning international students, with none of them specifically addressing gender and sexuality. These studies raise concerns about the effectiveness of EDI practices, particularly in the context of internationalization, due to the inherent contradiction between the two (Das Gupta & Gomez 2023; Buckner et al. 2022; Tavares 2021b). I seek to connect these findings to relevant experiences of international LGBTQ+ students.

Equity?

Tamtik and Guenter (2019) emphasize that Canadian universities largely overlook international students as an equity-seeking group, even though many are people of color and face unique barriers due to their temporary status. Buckner et al. (2022) argue that universities need to address the contradiction between market and equity logics, especially in relation to tuition disparities between international and domestic students. Das Gupta and Gomez (2023, 81) note that international students, particularly those with post-graduate work permits, often lack access to settlement and social services. This gap extends to international LGBTQ+ students, who encounter difficulties in accessing necessary medical and legal services related to gender transitioning and HIV prevention (OHTN n.d., 5).

Diversity?

Diversity is often promoted as a means of enriching knowledge and intercultural connections (Legusov & Jafar 2021, 57), yet Trilokekar and El Masri (2016, 674–76) reveal that the process of recruiting international students and their integration into Canadian society often reinforces conformity to Canadian norms around race, language, and religion, limiting the genuine mutual exchange intended. International students frequently find that their presence does not foster true intercultural connections, as curricula often lack international perspectives, and their experiences are undervalued (Tavares 2021b; Guo & Guo 2017). Ahmed (2012, 10–11) observes that “diversity” is frequently presented as an achievement even when there is no real institutional change. Moreover, while gender and sexual diversity are celebrated, Canadian universities often fail to address the unique needs of international LGBTQ+ students who prioritize privacy over visibility due to concerns like “diasporic surveillance” (Nguyen et al. 2017, 117–18; Corkum 2017, 114).

Inclusion?

Tavares (2021b, 1) finds that international students often experience superficial multiculturalism and social exclusion. LGBTQ+ international students face barriers both within the university and in queer communities, feeling isolated as “the international ones” in local LGBTQ+ groups and “the LGBTQ+ ones” among international students (Corkum 2017; Nguyen et al. 2017). Inclusion is problematic within a system that marginalizes certain groups, as Lenon and Dryden (2015, 16) argue, pointing out that “inclusion does not equate to justice.” They contend that inclusion efforts often uphold neoliberalism, white supremacy, and Western dominance, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of international LGBTQ+ students (Lenon & Dryden 2015; Thobani 2007).

The author, left, presents research findings in a panel titled “From Failure to Refusal: Queerness, Migrancy, and Other Improper Subjects of Racial and Colonial Capitalism” at the Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities, Toronto, Canada, May, 2023. The other panelists are, from left, Rhiannon Cobb, Mengzhu Fu, and Jin Haritaworn.

Closing Remarks

The existing literature provides an intersectional analysis of international LGBTQ+ students’ experiences, but more nuanced frameworks are needed to understand issues concerning their identities. Dominant identity categorizations in Western academia, like queer of color, may not fully capture their social locations, as they come from different racial structures in their home countries and may not initially feel connected to either queer or people of color histories and concerns in the host country. To address these incompatibilities, researchers have attempted to incorporate queer diasporic critique, neo-racism frameworks, and transnational critical race theory frameworks (Corkum 2017; Lee & Rice 2007; Yao et al 2019).

The literature examining EDI and decolonization in the context of internationalization presents two main approaches: one advocates for reforms within existing frameworks, focusing on improving EDI fulfillment through enhanced student support (Buckner et al. 2022; Tavares 2021b), and integrating Indigenous knowledge to decolonize internationalization (Beck & Pidgeon 2022). Another perspective challenges the systems of oppression at local and global levels and questions the feasibility of achieving equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization for international students within the current framework (Das Gupta & Gomez 2023).

Incorporating critical frameworks in everyday encounters and work with international students can challenge the reproduction of deficit narratives and expectations for seamless assimilation into local sexuality norms. Instead of constantly attempting to educate international students about the host country’s norms, there is a need to teach domestic students, faculty, staff, and society about other countries. It is essential to learn from the diverse stories and knowledge of international students, how they envision classrooms, campuses, queer and trans spaces, immigration, and internationalization, and be prepared to start adjusting instead of expecting them to do all the work.

References

Ahmed, S. 2012. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press. https://ocul-yor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01OCUL_YOR/j50f41/cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_1082140471.

Beck, K. & Pidgeon, M. 2020. “Across the Divide: Critical Conversations on Decolonization, Indigenization, and Internationalization.” In Tamtik, M., Trilokekar, R. D., & Jones, G. A., eds., International Education as Public Policy in Canada, 384–406. McGill-Queen’s University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18sqz9q.22.

Brunner, L. R. 2023. “Settler Nation-Building through Immigration as a Rationale for Higher Education: A Critical Discourse Analysis.” Higher Education Research & Development, 42(5), 1086–1102. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2023.2193732.

Buckner, E., Chan, E., & Kim, C. 2022. “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion on Canadian Universities: Where Do International Students Fit In?” Comparative and International Education, 51(1), 39–56. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/cie-eci/article/view/14613.

Corkum, T. 2017. “Where Do I Begin? Educational Citizenship and Sexual Minority International Students in Ontario.” In Carpenter, S. & Mojab, S., eds., Youth as/in Crisis: Young People, Public Policy, and the Politics of Learning, 109–25. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-6351-098-1_8.

Das Gupta, T. & Gomez, B. 2023. “International Students and Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) in Canadian Universities: A Critical Look.” In Kim, A., Buckner, E., & Montsion, J. M., eds., International Students from Asia in Canadian Universities, 72–85. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/b23160-7/international-students-equity-diversity-inclusivity-edi-canadian-universities-tania-das-gupta-bianca-gomez.

Dietzel, C., Maitland, H., & Jonsson, S. 2023. “Queerphobic Hate Is on the Rise, and LGBTQ+ Communities in Canada Need More Support.” The Conversation, October 24. http://theconversation.com/queerphobic-hate-is-on-the-rise-and-lgbtq-communities-in-canada-need-more-support-214932.

Guo, Y. & Guo, S. 2017. “Internationalization of Canadian Higher Education: Discrepancies between Policies and International Student Experiences.” Studies in Higher Education, 42(5), 851–868. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1293874.

Hamilton, L. & Su, Y. 2024. “International Students Cap Falsely Blames Them for Canada’s Housing and Health-Care Woes.” The Conversation, January 25. http://theconversation.com/international-students-cap-falsely-blames-them-for-canadas-housing-and-health-care-woes-221859.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). 2024. “Canada to Stabilize Growth and Decrease Number of New International Student Permits Issued to Approximately 360,000 for 2024.” News Release, January 22. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2024/01/canada-to-stabilize-growth-and-decrease-number-of-new-international-student-permits-issued-to-approximately-360000-for-2024.html.

Lee, E. O. J. 2019. “Responses to Structural Violence: The Everyday Ways in Which Queer and Trans Migrants with Precarious Status Respond to and Resist the Canadian Immigration Regime.” International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 10(1), 70–94. https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs101201918807.

Lee, J. J., & Rice, C. 2007. “Welcome to America? International Student Perceptions of Discrimination.” Higher Education, 53(3), 381–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-005-4508-3.

Legusov, O. & Jafar, H. F. 2021. “International Students at Canadian Community Colleges: Origins, Evolution, and Current Trends.” In Malveaux, G. & Bista, K., eds., International Students at US Community Colleges, 55–70. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003121978-5/international-students-canadian-community-colleges-oleg-legusov-hayfa-jafar?context=ubx&refId=3e351ea8-8115-4ad5-8588-cdf6b045bc7c.

Lenon, S. & Dryden, O. H. 2015. “Introduction: Interventions, Iterations, and Interrogations That Disturb the (Homo)Nation.” In Dryden, O. H. & Lenon, S., eds., Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging, 3–18. UBC Press.

Marshall, N. 2021. “Queering CYC Praxis: What I Learned from LGBTQI+ Newcomer, Refugee, and Immigrant Students’ Experiences in Canada.” International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 12(3–4), 170–202. https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs123-4202120344.

McCartney, D. M. & Metcalfe, A. S. 2018. “Corporatization of Higher Education through Internationalization: The Emergence of Pathway Colleges in Canada.” Tertiary Education and Management 24 (3): 206–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2018.1439997.

Nguyen, H. N., Agrawal, A., & Grafsky, E. L. 2017. “International LGBTQ Students across Borders and within the University. In Johnson, J. M. & Javier, G., eds., Queer People of Color in Higher Education, 109–22. Information Age Publishing, Inc. https://ocul-yor.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01OCUL_YOR/26r5oc/alma991036306548005164.

Oba, Y. & Pope, M. 2013. “Counseling and Advocacy with LGBT International Students.” Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 7(2), 185–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/15538605.2013.785468.

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Cultural Rights in Serbia: A Report

December 5, 2024
By 31741

Cultural rights are constitutionally guaranteed in Serbia, yet face significant challenges due to limited funding, brain drain, and economic instability. This report by Aleksa Nikolic (University of Belgrade, 2024) examines Serbia’s legal framework and steps toward improvement.

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What Are Cultural Rights?

Pok Yin Chow begins his recently published book Cultural Rights in International Law and Discourse: Contemporary Challenges and Interdisciplinary Perspectives with an introduction entitled “Cultural Rights—A Radical Hope?” In it, Chow tries to show that cultural rights are an integral component of human rights that are as fundamental as civil, political, economic, and social rights. The disintegration of the bipolar world has served to highlight the importance of this aspect of human rights, providing us with a much-needed perspective on how we can explore, negotiate, and come to a deeper understanding of various cultures.

Cultural rights can be assessed as a precondition for the protection of other human rights. They are also critical considerations in numerous hotspots, such as conflict and post-conflict zones. Cultural rights can serve as pillars in the development of society and its legal system.

Cultural Rights under Serbian Law

Human rights are guaranteed in the current Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (Article 18). Given the fact that Serbia has ratified the most important international legal conventions on human rights, one gets the impression that these guarantees are unnecessarily duplicated in the Constitution. However, Serbia is by no means an exception, considering that the global trend is for not only the constitutionalization of international law but also the internationalization of constitutional law, especially in the field of human rights.

Constitutional references to cultural rights in only three articles (Articles 71–73), though, testify to the fact that they have advanced the least in their evolution compared to other human rights. Article 71 guarantees that everyone has the “right to education” and that the government “shall provide for free tertiary education to successful and talented students of lower property status in accordance with the law.” Article 72 guarantees the autonomy of universities, faculties, and scientific institutions, which “shall decide freely on their organization and work in accordance with the law.”

Article 73 proclaims that “scientific and artistic creativity shall be unrestricted,” with authors of scientific and artistic works being “guaranteed moral and material rights in accordance with the law” and the Republic of Serbia assisting and promoting the “development of science, culture and art.”

The wording of these provisions suggests, though, that the Constitution guarantees cultural rights only in principle, with specific protections being elucidated by legal acts.

A border sign saying “Goodbye” from the Republic of Serbia. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Upholding Cultural Rights in Practice

The key problem related to upholding cultural rights in Serbia is the country’s fiscal situation. The state’s science budget is extremely low, with allocations in 2019 for research and development totaling only 0.4% of gross domestic product, or just one-eighth of levels in Austria. This points to the need to restructure the research and development system and define new strategies to improve the position of cultural rights.

Indeed, the Serbian government’s latest long-term strategy for scientific and technological development could lead to shifts in investment patterns and improvements in scientic standards. The idea of combining institutional and project financing of scientific research is encouraging, but the ultimate goal of reforms should not be to solve just one in a series of key issues but to create a systemically efficient legal framework that will enable uninterrupted scientific research.

Another important precondition for improving the position of cultural rights is to prevent further “brain drain.” Particularly after the war events of the 1990s, Serbia encountered a large wave of migration. After many years of marginalizing this problem, the first steps toward its resolution have finally been taken. To encourcage the young, highly educated population to remain in the country, the competent ministry last year engaged 1,200 young PhD students in scientific research projects. While this is a positive trend, it is necessary to create a long-term strategy that will, among other things, guarantee young researchers employment after the expiration of these projects.

Given the need for increased funding, the country’s economic recovery may be an important prerequisite for further advancing the protection of cultural rights in the Republic of Serbia.

India and Southeast Asia: From “Look East” to “Act East”

November 22, 2024
By 21713

Close historical and cultural linkages between India and Southeast Asia have helped to build strong economic ties between the regions, which, argues Kamei Aphun (Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2004), can also lead to stronger security arrangements.

*     *     *

Sociologically, the term “culture” is used to differentiate groups of people based on their shared identity. Culture unites people and engenders a sense of togetherness. This does not mean, of course, that there is no interaction between cultural groups; like other entities, cultures may clash with one another or go through a process of bargaining and accommodation. Culture is a complex system that shapes and reshapes intergroup relations within societies.

India and Southeast Asia have a long history and tradition of cultural exchange through trade and commerce. According to Jayshree Sengupta, “Southeast Asia was particularly attractive to Indian mercantile class and they named the faraway lands Swarnabhumi or land of gold, Tokola or land of cardamoms or Narikeldeep, land of coconuts. They followed two routes—one through land via Bengal, Assam, Manipur and Burma to reach different parts of Southeast Asia. The other route was the maritime route from Coromandel coast or the coast of Bay of Bengal to Cape Comorin and via Malacca strait to reach the Malay Peninsula” (Sengupta 2017).

India and Southeast Asia also experienced colonization under such Western countries as Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Colonization involved economic exploitation and had a profound impact on the social, economic, cultural, and political development of the occupied regions.

Cultural Connections

Cultural ties between India and Southeast Asia are deep-rooted and diverse. The trade in goods led to the spread of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism from India to Southeast Asia, and languages like Sanskrit and Pali had a major impact on Southeast Asian languages. Similarly, Indian culture was influenced by Southeast Asia, as can be seen in Tamil culture, Indian cuisine, textiles, and music and dance. India’s Islamic architecture influenced Indonesian and Malaysian architecture, while Dravidian (South Indian) and Nagara (North Indian) architectural styles have influenced the design of temples in Southeast Asia.

Cultural commonalities are also found among the festivals of Rongali (Assam in Northeast India), Songkran of Thailand, Pi Mai in Laos, and Arunachal Pradesh’s Sangken, which are all celebrated around New Year’s.

 

The Anusawari Prachathipatai Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand, incorporates design elements drawn from Hindu and Buddhist mythology.

India’s Look East Policy

Given the historical and cultural connection between India and Southeast Asia from ancient times to the post-independence period, India initiated a “Look East Policy” in 1991 as part of its foreign policy.

This policy was aimed at strengthening economic, strategic, and cultural ties with 23 countries in Southeast and East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. Northeast India played an integral part in this policy due to its geographical proximity to Southeast Asia. The various projects undertaken under the policy included the establishment of border trades centers in Moreh (Manipur); the improvement of transport links (the Indo-Myanmar Friendship Road; the Trilateral Highway linking India, Myanmar, and Thailand; the India-Myanmar rail link from Manipur to Hanoi via Myanmar; the Trans-Asian Highway; the Trans Asian highway from Singapore to Istanbul passing through India; and the Trans Asian Railway from Delhi to Hanoi); the hosting of the India-ASEAN Car Rally in 2004 from Guwahati, India, to Batam, Indonesia; the construction of the 800-km-long Trans-National Gas Pipe Line between Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India; and the implementation of Quick Impact Projects to build infrastructure in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

India’s Act East Policy

The Look East Policy was given an upgrade and rechristened as the “Act East Policy” in 2014, with the government rejuvenating its initiatives to actualize the potential of the policy. The Act East Policy marked a shift in India’s perspective of the world, as New Delhi gave priority to building cooperative ties with the rapidly rising economies of Southeast Asia.

The Northeast region was identified as being vital to the success of the policy for several reasons. First, four Northeastern states—namely Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram—shared borders with the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar. Second, besides geographical proximity, many ethnic groups in the Northeast region shared much in terms of culture, history, and even language with Southeast Asian countries. And third, the persisting problems of insurgency and economic underdevelopment were thought more resolvable by building stable ties with neighboring countries. The Act East Policy held the promise of actualizing both the internal and external aspirations of India, but materializing this vision would require thorough research and the implementation of appropriate decisions and policies.

As for the policy’s impact, the reality on the ground is that the results have thus far been mixed. Strong claims have been made that the central government was motivated by a desire not to promote the development of the Northeast region but rather to eliminate insurgency forces by cooperating with Myanmar. In this regard, Baruah (2007) maintains that the problem of the Northeast “did not begin with the insurgencies and it will not end with them.” In addition, while interaction between Southeast Asia and India overall has been increasing, that between the Northeast and its immediate neighbors has been in decline. Again, Baruah (2007) emphasizes that the need to establish not only maritime but also continental trade links to strengthen India’s economy in the long run provides ample reasons for the government to bolster its policies.

Other impediments to the realization of the policy’s goals include the requirement for Indian citizens to obtain Inner Line Permits to travel to protected tribal areas in the Northeast. This overcomplicates the process of making visits to and investing in the region; the abolition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which grants special powers to the Indian Armed Forces to maintain public order in “disturbed areas” of the Northeast, has also been increasingly looked upon as a necessary step for the Act East Policy and related policies to bear fruit in the region.

And most importantly, the underdevelopment of road, rail, and air transport infrastructure needs to be addressed to ensure connectivity between the constituent states and other regions. The Act East Policy holds the potential of transforming the Northeast from peripheral status deprived of benefits to a robust region of trade and tourism where South and Southeast Asia meet.

Conclusion

Strengthening cultural linkages between India and Southeast Asia is an ambitious project that presents formidable challenges but also promises many benefits, as it can promote economic development in a region having a shared future and destiny. India’s Look/Act East Policy seeks to improve economic, political, and cultural relations with Southeast Asia by drawing on aged-old historical connections. It will guide India’s efforts to propel the region on the road to development fueled by cultural affinity, and this should help strengthen India’s position through the utilization of culture as a soft power.

 

The author with Sylff Association Chair Yohei Sasakawa during the April 2011 Building a Better Asia Young Leaders Retreat (BABA*) in Nara, Japan.

*Sylff News about "BABA".

References

Baruah, Sanjib. 2007. “Beyond Durable Disorder: Northeast India and the Look East Policy.” In Sanjib Baruah, ed., Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (pp. 211–236). Oxford University Press.

Coedes, George. 1965. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Haokip, Thongkholal. 2015. “India’s Look East Policy: Prospects and Challenges for Northeast India,” Studies in Indian Politics, Volume 3, Issue 2.

Keyes, Charles. 1994. The Golden Peninsula: Culture and Adaptation in Mainland Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Mabbett, Ian. 1977. “The ‘Indianization’ of Southeast Asia: Reflections on the Prehistorical Sources.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 8. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20070221.

McDaniel, Justin. 2008. “Pali.” New Mandala. Accessed December 20, 2023. https://www.newmandala.org/pali/.

Sarma, Atul. 2018. “Integrating Northeast with South East Asia: Great Expectations and Ground Realities.” In Atul Sarma & Saswati Choudhury, eds., Mainstreaming the Northeast in India’s Look and Act East Policy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Sengupta, Jayshree. 2017. “India’s Cultural and Civilisational Influence on Southeast Asia,” Observer Research Foundation.

Singh, Shreya. 2023. “Mapping India’s Historical Ties with Southeast Asia.” Indian Council of World Affairs.

Interiors of Inequality: Ethnographic Exploration of Social Housing in Serbia

November 12, 2024
By 28933

Residents of Serbia’s social housing estates navigate a landscape marked by overcrowding, institutional abandonment, and a persistent threat of eviction. Fieldwork conducted using an SRG award by Sara Nikolić (University of Belgrade, 2020–21) reveals that contrary to stereotypes that label them as lazy or deceitful, these individuals are actively engaged in homemaking and yearn for improved conditions.

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The narratives of abandonment and neglect articulated by the residents of social housing estates in Serbia come as no surprise when thinking of the welfare system in the country. In public discourse and the media, people dependent on welfare, especially those in Roma communities, tend to be portrayed as lazy, incompetent, fickle, and intrinsically prone to crime.

With the aim of countering such racist narratives, I have been conducting research into the nexus between social housing tenants and their living environments. Specifically, my research probes the concept of homemaking and its boundaries within the challenging context of poverty and extreme housing precarity.

Overturning Popular Stereotypes

What I gathered from social housing estate residents during my fieldwork challenged the popular notion of tenants as criminals who deceive and exploit the state and taxpayers and who base their claims on exaggerated or false claims. They frequently lamented what they legitimately perceived as an inadequate state presence, expressing the need for the state to provide more services and resources to the local community and their estate.

Moreover, the residents’ use of terms like “care” and “interest” suggested a deeper, more personal connection to their neighborhoods, implying that the estate was situated within the moral framework of the local community (Kocsh 2014).

The socialist system in Yugoslavia, which considered housing as social infrastructure, provided a relatively easy path to securing a roof over one’s head. This system was suspended in 1990, however, when constitutional changes abolished the obligation of employees to set aside a contribution for housing construction from their salaries.

This was followed by the “big bang” privatization of apartments. In just under five years, the housing market was completely transformed, with 98% of publicly owned apartments passing into the hands of private owners (Damjanović 2010). This speedy shift toward neoliberal housing policies also resulted in a steady withdrawal of state resources and services from social housing estates.

The estates where I conducted my fieldwork—a small community of twenty, mainly Roma households displaced from Kosovo and a large neighborhood of nearly a thousand households of economically and socially disadvantaged families, again mostly of Roma origin—are exemplary in this respect. Situated, respectively, in the outlying areas of a middle-sized town and the capital city, they were built in the 2000s to offer housing for seriously disadvantaged communities.

For over 10 years now, about half of the residents of both estates have been without electricity, and a large number of households are at constant risk of forced eviction. In addition to problems of unemployment, welfare dependence, and health problems related to poor housing conditions, these tenants must deal with a vast and inflexible bureaucratic machinery when reporting problems with their homes or the rental system.

In the following, I describe the findings of an ethnographic inquiry into the homemaking practices of these estates, conducted with the help of an SRG award.

In-Depth Interviews with Residents

This research project adopted the concept of unhomeliness to describe the state’s lack of care, as manifested directly and collectively within social housing estates (Miller 1988; 2001; Navaro-Yashin 2012).

Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted from May to September 2024, with data collection carried out by myself and two PhD students, Dušanka Milosavljević and Igor Išpanović. Since the research involved working with people, particularly marginalized communities, all activities were conducted in strict adherence to the Code of Ethics of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade.

Alongside records of interviews and home visits, the data collected included observations, sketches, photographs, and diary entries made during and immediately after visits to the settlements. A total of 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately one hour, were conducted in the homes of social housing estate residents. The respondents, aged between 18 and 65, were primarily of Roma origin, with a few of Serbian and Wallachian descent. Recruitment followed a snowball sampling method, with local gatekeepers playing a key role in fostering trust and facilitating connections within the communities.

Of the 20 participants, 5 were men and 15 were women. This gender disparity is largely due to the timing of the field visits, which took place during the day when women and children were more likely to be at home, while men were often occupied with informal and precarious work, such as collecting secondary raw materials or working in construction.

All respondents provided informed consent for both audio recordings of the interviews and visual documentation of their living conditions, including sketches and photographs of their apartments. Consent covered the use of these materials for research and promotional purposes. In cases where respondents were not functionally literate, the researchers read the consent form aloud, and verbal consent was obtained.

Overcrowded Housing and Lack of Privacy

I’d rather live in a desert—at least there, no one is around.
—Man, Uzun Mirkova estate, Požarevac

The notion of what defines comfortable living differs widely. For many of my informants, who have experienced homelessness, the hardships of war, and inadequate collective emergency housing, conversations about housing often touched on issues like overcrowding, the need to share resources among family members, and distinctions between those who had benefited from welfare policies and those who had not.

Home comfort has both social and material dimensions (Johnson 2018). Socially, it involves expectations regarding living standards, as well as the economic, legal, family, and civic relationships that help maintain the resources needed to meet those expectations. On the material side, it includes the infrastructure—pipes, wiring, and other systems—that ensure the home remains warm, well-lit, and healthy. The apartments I visited during this research failed to meet such “comfort criteria.”

A family home in Uzun Mirkova estate, Požarevac, Serbia. May 2024. Photo by Sara Nikolić.

However, the greatest source of discomfort stemmed not from inadequate and health-threatening housing conditions but from the lack of privacy. When asked what they would prioritize if financial constraints were lifted, many respondents expressed a desire to “move out of here and have our own yard.” Such responses suggest a yearning for private space, rather than a fetishization of private property.

After fleeing Kosovo after the war, the residents of Uzun Mirkova lived in emergency shelters for the first 11 years. They then gained access to social housing, but they were assigned homes that lacked essential amenities and were overcrowded, with living space of only 35 to 50 square meters for each household averaging seven members.

The constant presence of other people has not engendered a sense of community. Extreme poverty has hindered the fulfillment of basic needs, resulting in a situation where individuals, particularly women, spend time together out of necessity rather than genuine social connection. Men, on the other hand, sought employment outside the estates, creating further separation. For those who have access to electricity, the preference is often to isolate themselves with the television set, disconnecting from the chaos that envelops them.

Threat of Eviction Induces “Anticipatory Uncanniness” 

No one comes to visit us. They come to evict us, to give us eviction notices, to mistreat and threaten us. . . . We have no rights here, as if we’re not Serbian citizens.
—Woman, Kamendin estate, Belgrade

Housing conditions were a source of frustration and complaint for everyone. Apartments were chronically overcrowded, electricity was cut over a decade ago, mold was difficult to eliminate due to widespread dampness, and the flats remained cold during winter. Despite these issues, the competent institutions appeared reluctant to invest in repairs or maintenance, let alone in constructing new homes. Moreover, they blamed the tenants themselves for the poor living conditions. In the Belgrade neighborhood of Kamendin, a campaign against “ungrateful” residents resulted in massive eviction orders.

In the Kamendin estate, gas is used for cooking, heating, and for threatening police and enforcement officers during forced eviction attempts. June 2024. Photo by Sara Nikolić.

In contrast to common eviction narratives (e.g., Desmond 2017; Sullivan 2017), the presence of legal coercion did not lead solely to feelings of worry or despair (though such emotions were expressed as well). My research revealed that, in addition to evoking fear, anxiety, tension, depression, shame, and grief (Dudley 2000; Han 2011), the threat of eviction also generated hope and a feeling of homeliness.

More precisely, the tenants I encountered responded to the potential coercion in varying ways, ranging from anger toward racialized welfare policies and optimism over the prospect of “moving out of here” to fear of facing the grim potential of once again losing their home. This anticipatory uncanniness (Davey 2019) demonstrates how the state, through its recourse to legitimate coercion and institutional racism, subtly influences the aspirations tenants develop in relation to their homes.

Conclusion

This ethnographic exploration of social housing conditions in Serbia sheds light on the complex and often overlooked experiences of residents, particularly those living in extreme housing precarity. The narratives gathered during my fieldwork challenge the stigmatizing portrayals of social housing beneficiaries as exploiters of welfare systems, revealing instead a population that deeply yearns for stability, care, and improved living conditions. Contrary to public perceptions, these individuals are not passive recipients of state aid but are actively engaged in homemaking under conditions of chronic neglect, overcrowding, and institutional abandonment.

The research also highlights the ways in which legal coercion and the ever-present threat of eviction shape the emotional landscape of social housing residents. The anticipatory uncanniness experienced by many residents underscores how the state’s subtle and overt forms of control impact not only their current living conditions but also their visions for the future.

In sum, this study offers a critical understanding of the relationship between the state, social housing, and its marginalized residents. It calls attention to the urgent need for rethinking housing policies in Serbia, where systemic neglect, bureaucratic hurdles, and inadequate resources continue to undermine the dignity and well-being of those most in need of secure and humane living environments. By focusing on the everyday struggles and aspirations of these communities, this research contributes to broader anthropological discussions on housing precarity, social justice, and the role of the state in shaping lives at the margins.

 

References

Damjanović, D. (2010). Socijalno stanovanje: Prikaz stambenih politika Srbije i odabranih zemalja Evrope. Beograd: Palgo centar. 

Davey, R. (2020). Snakes and ladders: Legal coercion, housing precarity, and home-making aspirations in southern England. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 26(1), 12–29. 

Desmond, M. (2017). Evicted: Poverty and profit in the American city. London: Penguin. 

Dudley, K. M. (2000). Debt and dispossession: Farm loss in America’s heartland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Han, C. (2011). Symptoms of another life: Time, possibility, and domestic relations in Chile’s credit economy. Cultural Anthropology, 26(1), 7–32. 

Johnson, C. (2018). The moral economy of comfortable living: Negotiating individualism and collectivism through housing in Belgrade. Critique of Anthropology, 38(2), 156–171. 

Koch, I. (2014). Everyday experiences of state betrayal on an English council estate. Anthropology of This Century, 9.

Miller, D. (1988). Appropriating the state on the council estate. Man, 23(2), 353–372. 

Miller, D. (2001). Possessions. In D. Miller (ed.), Home possessions: Material culture behind closed doors, pp. 107–122. Oxford: Berg. 

Navaro-Yashin, Y. (2012). The make-believe space: Affective geography in a postwar polity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 

Sullivan, E. (2017). Displaced in place: Manufactured housing, mass eviction, and the paradox of state intervention. American Sociological Review, 82(2), 243–269.