Naučnice iz Srbije u svetu: kroz dijalog i refleksiju
Women Scholars from Serbia Abroad: Through Dialogue and Refl ection

Author(s): Svenka Savić, Maja Korać
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology, Gender history
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: the context of leaving; fi elds of study and personal experience; diasporic and professional networks; women’s friendships; the question of identity; the question of language
Summary/Abstract: Serbia does not have reliable data on the number of women scholars who are currently living and working abroad. Data on those left during the 1960s or 1990s, are also not available, making it impossible to make an informed assessment of the continuity of this process that started during the last century and continues well into the 21st. Recent reports indicate that an effort has been made in the past few years, to collect data about their number and institutional affiliations. However, such data lack information about important aspects of their professional life and work, in academic institutions abroad. This type of information is crucial for the understanding of the academic environments and scholarly work they are engaged in. Awareness of and knowledge about a range of aspects of their lived experiences is central to establishing fruitful exchanges and collaborations between the women scholars living and working abroad, and the academic and research institutions in Serbia. One of the ways to fill this gap and to learn more about this multilayered aspect of their experience is to focus on life stories of the women scholars who left the country during the 1990s and continued to do so, since the start of the 21st century. In this article, based on a life story, we dip into a multi-layered meaning of this kind of life experience, through dialog and reflection, in order to emphasise the importance of the context: societal, political, scholarly, and institutional. Looking into their scholarly and life experience through these different contextual lenses is sine qua non for their full grasp and understanding.

• Details
• Contents