Intersekcionalna perspektiva u akademskom prostoru: pripadnice nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji
An Intersectional Perspective in Academic Space: Women from National Minorities in Serbia

Author(s): Karolina Lendák-Kabók
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology, Gender history, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: women; national minorities; academic community; career building; intersectionality; Serbia
Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the position of female members of the Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian national minorities in the academic community in Serbia. The analysis is based on sixteen semi-structured interviews with female teaching staff , who were employed at the Universities of Novi Sad or Belgrade at the time of the interview. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework, but also as a method, was used in the analysis of the interview, together with the narrative analysis. The intersectional analysis indicated that female members of national minorities struggle with invisible prejudices, and that they attribute the difficulties they have to overcome during career building to their national affiliation, while gender inequalities are not noticed or given much importance. This paper shows how, in a specific social environment – i.e., in the system of higher education in Serbia – they develop the representations and identity constructions of a specific category of women who try to solve their difficulties during career building on an individual level, without structural or institutional support. For that reason, their career path requires more work and proof of achievements, in order to compensate for their otherness and lack of sense of belonging.

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