[{"id":67,"date":"2018-12-11T12:20:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=67"},"modified":"2018-12-11T12:20:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T16:20:40","slug":"final-research-design-presentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/12\/11\/final-research-design-presentation\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Research Design Presentation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"676\" height=\"507\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nTOnU64bP7U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":65,"date":"2018-12-07T11:59:14","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T15:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=65"},"modified":"2018-12-08T00:59:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T04:59:46","slug":"research-portfolio-post-9-mentor-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/12\/07\/research-portfolio-post-9-mentor-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #9: Mentor Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This Tuesday, December 4th, I was able to meet with my faculty mentor, Dr. Rose Shinko one last time before the semester ends. Our conversation lasted about 30 minutes, and comprised of updates on the status of my project, clarifying discussion on broader interpretivist research, and suggestions looking ahead to SISU-306.<\/p>\n<p>Because our last meeting was a few weeks ago, Dr. Shinko was really curious and excited to see the shape my project is taking on. While my methodology is not absolutely set in stone, I am leaning towards pursuing an interpretivist research project with my topic&#8217;s current standing. Dr. Shinko found this to be an appropriate choice for my research project, and was really exited about my project&#8217;s discourse analysis about Balkan women leading conflict resolution as both fulfilling natural roles and subverting the natural roles of men as political change-makers. Dr. Shinko recommended involving Professor Ann Ticker in my project, and is working on inviting her to our next mentor meeting. I am very much looking forward to hearing both of their insights for my topic in the context of an interpretivist project.<\/p>\n<p>I went into my meeting with Dr. Shinko with a list of questions, or broader points of discussion for interpretivist research, because I am beginning to look forward to how my project will evolve and what interpretivist research looks like as a final product. One of the concepts we discussed was interpretivism as a scientific process. As an undergraduate researcher, I was concerned with lacking the proper qualifications to lead an interpretivist project and yielding a final project that resembles more of a high school research paper that gathers and spits out information, rather than yielding genuine, methodical academic conclusions. I brought up how unattainable Aradeu&#8217;s piece &#8220;The Perverse Politics of Four-Letter Words&#8221; seems, for example, with her line of discourse analysis very thorough and cohesive [1]. But Dr. Shinko advised that with the reading of more scholarship, or with the reading of a particularly special source itself, will come a clarifying point in which the line of analysis and research is crystallized. From this pursuit and continuous exploration and synthesis of research emerges a proper line of analysis that builds an interpretivist project of merit. It is also what qualifies the researcher, as a methodical scientist.<\/p>\n<p>For my own pursuit of this moment of clarity, Dr. Shinko recommended a number of texts and types of sources. One of the other discussion points I brought in my meeting was this idea of identity nurturing in interpretivist research versus agency. What I mean is that a lot of times women in IR are explained to be the way they are, or have access to what they do, because they have been conditioned to be a certain way. For example, these scholars would say that women occupy peace-building efforts simply because they were taught to be very peaceful and maternal. How does this conclusion interfere with the independent agency of women, though? Are all of their actions simply products of &#8220;nurture&#8221; or &#8220;nature,&#8221; or do they chose their political positions? This is where Dr. Shinko recommended taking a look at more general, feminist scholarship to see where the debate differs, specifically suggesting feminist works from non-Western scholars. Dr. Shinko highlighted that many women actually gain their political agency through undermining their works themselves. She said that women in some cases purposely do not call their work &#8220;political,&#8221; so that they can sort of infiltrate and navigate the public sphere with benevolent social (political) work without having to go through the social obstacles they would have to if they called themselves by another name. Women in non-Western countries have found this the best way to give themselves a platform. This is something that Western feminists typically overlook, according to Dr. Shinko. A source Dr. Shinko recommended to learn more about this was &#8220;Pray the Devil Away,&#8221; a film about the Libyan civil war and the peace-building efforts by women there [2].<\/p>\n<p>Beyond watching the aforementioned documentary over the winter break, I also hope to read more diverse feminist perspectives on female identity formation and personal agency. I am very much looking forward to my meeting with Dr. Shinko and Professor Ticker when we return from the break. I am also hoping to schedule a meeting with Dr. Morosini, my Cross-Cultural Communications professor, as she is an expert on the Balkans, my region of focus for my project. My reading list for break, coupled with the expertise of my mentors (both official and not), have reassured my thoughts about the direction of my project and will help me move forward into SISU-306. One thing I am still teasing out is how specific I am going to get with the geographic focus of my project, and where that focus should be should I zoom out of the general Balkans (this will emerge from more primary source reading, I am sure). I am looking forward to seeing how the research develops and analysis emerges as I move forward with more readings (of both neopositivist and interpretivist scholarship) and primary sources from the women of the Balkans (and other regions).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Claudia Aradau. &#8220;The Perverse Politics of Four-Letter Words: Risk and Pity in the Securitisation of Human Trafficking,&#8221; <em>Millennium: Journal of International Studies<\/em>\u00a033, no. 2 (2004), 251-277.<\/p>\n<p>[2]\u00a0<em>Pray the Devil Away<\/em>, directed by Gini Reticker, featuring (Leymah Gbowee, Vaiba Flomo, Janet Johnson-Bryant, Etweda &#8220;Sugars&#8221; Cooper, Asatu Bah Kenneth, Etty Weah) (Balcony Releasing, 2008), Streaming (Film Platform, 2008).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Tuesday, December 4th, I was able to meet with my faculty mentor, Dr. Rose Shinko one last time before the semester ends. Our conversation lasted about 30 minutes, and comprised of updates on the status of my project, clarifying&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/12\/07\/research-portfolio-post-9-mentor-meeting\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mentorship","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":61,"date":"2018-11-12T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=61"},"modified":"2018-11-12T04:00:43","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T08:00:43","slug":"research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/11\/12\/research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #8 (Qualitative Data Sources for Interpretivist Research)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I plan to research identity formation in the Balkans because I want to find out what explains the leadership of women in post-Balkan war peace-building, in order to help my reader understand whether there is a relationship between particular identity formation\/hierarchization and conflict resolution. Balkan states are still far behind on basic pillars of gender equality compared to the measures their progressive European neighbors reached long before. Why then, have women, after the brutal, nationalist wars that emerged between Balkan countries in the late nineties, during which ethnic cleansing, forced mobilization, and political unrest were poignant realities, lead the way in those peace-building efforts? I intent to explore the discourses surrounding female involvement in political affairs in order to better understand how Balkan women have come to occupy public spaces of conflict resolution today and how they are seen in those spaces.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One of the primary sources I have come to admire is a speech by Serbian female politician, Vesna Pe\u0161i\u0107.\u00a0The Vital Voices Initiative was introduced in 1997 in order to convene political leaders for a global conversation about the role of women in society and the ways in which society can collectively improve conditions for women. Among the speakers at the first Vital Voices Conference in Vienna, Austria was Vesna Pe\u0161i\u0107, president of the Civil Alliance of Serbia. Her speech, \u201cNationalism, War, Crisis and Women\u2019s Politics,\u201d examines the legal and social circumstances that have enabled Europe to progress toward greater female equality, but also illuminates the fact that Balkan nations, Serbia in particular, have somehow fallen victim to stunted growth in terms of granting greater equality to women. Pe\u0161i\u0107 draws on her personal experience as a political leader and woman in Serbia in order to demonstrate to her listeners the challenges that affront women, and discusses the public discourses that have molded these experiences over time, along with why women are able to take back positions of power today. [1]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In her discussion of historical discourses about the role of women, Pe\u0161i\u0107 mentions the paradoxes of femininity, as identified by male-dominated public spheres, which include Balkan women as weapons of war, &#8220;as the producer of new members of the Nation,&#8221; and the Eve-ish figures to male political figures. [2] Throughout the course of the early Balkan wars of the 90s, the rape and victimization of women were common, even &#8220;expected,&#8221; as the role of women was reduced to weapons for men in positions of power to carry out aggressive, nationalistic war campaigns. [3] Pe\u0161i\u0107 also identifies the discourse relating femininity and motherhood in her speech, which &#8220;makes [the woman] the maid who sacrifices herself and toils for the well being of all family members&#8221;, validating her suffering for the sake of the nation. [4] Finally, Pe\u0161i\u0107 identifies the attribution of women to the downfall of man in public discourse, which depicts women as aggressive and in discrete control of their husbands (and consequently everything that goes wrong in a nation). [5]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond setting a contextual background for the discourses that have surrounded female identity (as perceived by the (male-dominated) public sphere) and their impacts on women&#8217;s roles in public affairs, Pe\u0161i\u0107 also enters the conversation on female involvement in peace-building efforts in the bucket I referred to in my literature review sketch as the &#8220;identity formation&#8221; bucket, putting forward this idea of peace as a natural, feminine process of sorts. Pe\u0161i\u0107 joins the discourse of scholars such as Cheryl De La Rey &amp; Susan McKay, who point to gender and context specific aspects of peacebuilding, which, when lead by women, often yields focus on processes, people, and relationships. [6] Pe\u0161i\u0107 says &#8220;Non-violence is inherent in the women&#8217;s expression,&#8221; sighting candle-lighting and symbolic non-violent tactics as examples in which women engaged in protest against violence and led peace building efforts. [7]\u00a0Pe\u0161i\u0107&#8217;s view, is of course, not as simple as women are peaceful beings who engage in mere symbolic organization. She sights female political leadership as &#8220;basic&#8221; to democracy and even outlines ways in which women can better organize to fight a stronger battle against aggressive nationalistic, and masculine political practices. [8]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A lot of traditional discourses surrounding notions of femininity and female identity formation have paved the way for the puzzle of Balkan female leadership in peace building processes.\u00a0As a Serbian-American woman myself, this topic is incredibly close to my heart and frame of mind, both in terms of understanding all that comes along with that identity, and the certain assumptions I may associate with it. Acknowledging this, I am eager to analyze the relevant discourses and explore this puzzle more in-depth in order to see what conclusions are elevated by the sources.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Vesna Pe\u0161i\u0107, &#8220;Nationalism, War, Crisis and Women\u2019s Politics&#8221; (speech,\u00a0Vienna, Austria, The Vital Voices Conference, 10 July 1997). 11 November 2018, gos.sbc.edu\/p\/pesic.html.<\/p>\n<p>[2]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[3]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[4]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[5]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[6]. Cheryl De La Rey &amp; Susan McKay. \u201cPeacebuilding as a Gendered Process,\u201d <em>Journal of Social Issues<\/em> 62 (14 February 2006), 141-153.<\/p>\n<p>[7]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[8]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I plan to research identity formation in the Balkans because I want to find out what explains the leadership of women in post-Balkan war peace-building, in order to help my reader understand whether there is a relationship between particular identity&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/11\/12\/research-portfolio-post-8-qualitative-data-sources-for-interpretivist-research\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":60,"date":"2018-10-29T04:34:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T08:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=60"},"modified":"2018-10-29T04:34:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T08:34:42","slug":"research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/29\/research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #7 (Qualitative Data Sources)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For my small-n research approach, I ask:\u00a0What explains variation in female involvement in peace-building processes?<\/p>\n<p>Women are still far behind on basic pillars of gender equality compared to their male counterparts. How then, do women sometimes post war and conflict, lead the way in those peace-building efforts, despite the institutional and social setbacks? How does this female leadership in conflict resolution happen? What explains it?<\/p>\n<p>The article &#8220;Explaining the Variation in Gender Composition of Personnel Contributions to UN Peacekeeping Operations&#8221; by\u00a0Kerry F. Crawford, James H. Lebovic, and Julia M. Macdonald, investigates, as the title suggests, the variation in female participation in peacebuilding efforts, particularly in UN Peacekeeping Operations. [1] The article &#8220;presents theoretical explanations for the varying contributions of personnel to UNPOs\u2014including the political and socioeconomic character of the contributing states, international reputations and norms, and various demand-side influences exerted by missions\u2014and then tests these explanations with a cross-sectional time-series model that accounts for female personnel contributions to each mission in the 2010\u20132011 period.&#8221; [2] In other words, the article tests the aforementioned contributions (the separate independent variables) against the varying contribution to UNPOs (the dependent variable).<\/p>\n<p>The dependent variable in this sudy is actually a binary dependent variable, with both the varying female contribution to UNPOs, and the varying male participation to UNPOs being tested in order to &#8220;establish whether [the] hypotheses hold specifically for females or whether they are validated because certain countries tend to contribute, or certain missions tend to attract, personnel regardless of gender.&#8221; [3] Crawford, Lebovic, and Macdonald operationalize this dependent variable with nominal values, with the number 1 representing female or male contribution in mission-year, and the number 0 representing no female or male contribution in mission-year. [4] This source is a qualitative data source.<\/p>\n<p>I could model my own research project after the operationalization style that the authors in this article use. Upon first thought, I would say I don&#8217;t need a binary dependent variable because I&#8217;m really only interested in the female participation in peace-building processes, but Crawford, Lebovic, and Macdonald add an element of validity and replicability by measuring for both female and male participation, as both are accounted for and no unfair conclusions could (ideally) be drawn this way, since we are testing gender altogether. I could also operationalize my dependent variable (female, or female and male participation in peacebuilding) with nominal values, but instead of the unit of measurement being UNPO missions\/year, I could make the measurement of participation leading a significant peacebuilding effort or not&#8211;like if there was a group of females or a leading woman or two managing a significant conflict resolution process.<\/p>\n<p>If I operationalized my dependent variable in this way, Bosnia, for example, would past the test for participation. In Bosnia, leading female scholars began \u201can important triangle in feminist theological work that cross[ed] state and ethnonational borders and boundaries imposed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.\u201d [5] \u201cIt erupted from the need to provide religious answers and comfort for the shame and guilt female survivors of sexual trauma felt,\u201d and developed into a methodology for women of all Abrahamistic traditions and ethnic groups to engage in powerful dialogue, even though they were once at war. [6] The network of women that feminist theology connected enabled, for the first time, collaboration by seemingly opposite \u201csides\u201d of the war. It initiated dialogue between women of seemingly opposite worlds. This case study would have a 1 value assigned to it, as it does indeed satisfy women leading a significant peace-building operation.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to seeing how this dependent variable operationalization engages with the other possible case studies I have identified. I would love to have case studies that do not pass this test and receive a 0 numeric attachment, for no participation by a gender. This article provides a great outline for me to seek guidance from, both in terms of research modeling and the topic itself. I look forward to exploring more qualitative data sources.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1]\u00a0Kerry F. Crawford, James H. Lebovic, and Julia M. Macdonald, \u201cExplaining the Variation in Gender Composition of Personnel Contributions to UN Peacekeeping Operations\u201d <em>Armed Forces &amp; Society<\/em> 41, 2 (2014), 257.<\/p>\n<p>[2]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[3]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 269.<\/p>\n<p>[4]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 271.<\/p>\n<p>[5]\u00a0Zilka Spahi\u0107-\u0160iljak. \u201cDo It and Name It: Feminist Theology and Peace Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina,\u201d\u00a0<em>Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion<\/em>\u00a029, 2 (2013), 181.<\/p>\n<p>[6] <em>Ibid<\/em>, 184.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For my small-n research approach, I ask:\u00a0What explains variation in female involvement in peace-building processes? Women are still far behind on basic pillars of gender equality compared to their male counterparts. How then, do women sometimes post war and conflict,&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/29\/research-portfolio-post-7-qualitative-data-sources\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":58,"date":"2018-10-16T01:47:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T05:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=58"},"modified":"2018-10-16T01:47:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T05:47:24","slug":"research-portfolio-post-6-quantitative-data-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/16\/research-portfolio-post-6-quantitative-data-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #6 (Quantitative Data Sources)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thinking with my neo-positivist hat on, my larger research puzzle is: What explains female involvement in peace-building processes? Or What explains the involvement of women or lack thereof in peace-building processes? One particular case study that I&#8217;ve been fascinated in has been the leadership of conflict resolution by Balkan women after the wars in the region during the 90s. Although it is important to note that my fascination and emotional commitment to the region is not enough to make it a definitive case study in my research project if I choose to take a neo-positivist approach to my project, I chose this article because the topic interests me in these preliminary stages, the statistical data in it is interesting and important, and regardless of whether or not I pursue a large n case study, I feel as though I can incorporate this literature into my project because of the topic and focus.This article would be useful with my smaller, interpretivist puzzle, which is what explains Balkan female leadership in conflict resolution post wars.<\/p>\n<p>The article &#8220;The Short-run Effects of the Croatian War on Education, Employment, and Earnings&#8221; by Milica Kecmanovic explores the effect the Croatian War (1991-1995) had on the 1971 generation of men in terms of educational, employment, and earning trajectories, in comparison with their female counterparts. [1] The author used the data from the Croatian and Slovenian Labour Force Surveys in order to use war as a &#8220;natural experiment,&#8221; to contrast its own findings with neighboring states that did not experience war. [2] The author finds that the experience of war itself had a negative impact on educational outcomes (among other things) for women, with men who were 20 years old at the start of the war completing more schooling than women in that same age group. [3] Understanding the impacts the variable of war has on vital aspects of society such as education and labor market outcomes has profound significance on &#8220;in order to be able to create effective postconflict policy that will provide the best protection against the negative consequences of war.&#8221; [4]<\/p>\n<p>The dataset in this research article that deals with education, Table 2: Difference in Differences for Education (1971 vs 1967), measures the rate of change of education between men and women in Croatia and Slovenia before and after the time frame of 1971 and 1967. [5] The independent variable is the experience of war present in the country during the time period (Croatia is the affirmative, while Slovenia the negative), and the dependent variable is the education rate for each gender during the time periods in each of the two countries, which consequently translates to the dependent variable that is difference in differences of education. It appears as though war had a negative impact on educational attainments in Croatia, while in Slovenia the rates did not change because there was no war to vary the attainment levels. [6]<\/p>\n<p>If i were to use this dataset in a large-n version of my research project, I might consider\u00a0analyzing the effect of the war in the realm of education in another former Yugoslav state\u00a0such as Serbia, where the war has not had such a successful or victorious outcome and where there was a strong negative public sentiment toward it, because I would take into account more control variables such as those previously mentioned that could affect the outcome of my findings. The independent variable would be the presence of war, with the independent variables being education.<\/p>\n<p>I could also use the data set up in a different way, by making the independent variable the presence of war, and the dependent variable the number of women in positions of political leadership, comparing the difference of differences from before and after the start of the Balkan wars. The presence of war could be operationalized as a nominal variable (1 being yes, 2 being no), and the presence of women in positions of political leadership could be operationalized as an ordinal variable or an interval variable (ordinally have 1-5 represent increasing amounts of leadership types, and intervallly have the exact position numbers).<\/p>\n<p>With this set up, I could likely do a small n-case study in order to truly capture regions of the world and political situations that genuinely capture the puzzling phenomenon of women leading peace-building and conflict resolution, despite the odds pointing against them in every other direction (for example, the women in Bosnia after the ethnic wars, or the Palestinian Liberation fighting women, etc.).<\/p>\n<p>This dataset generated by Kecmanovic is limited in a few ways. First of all, the case study in Croatia could be limited as I said before because it doesn&#8217;t take into account the outcomes for a losing state in the war, or a state whose public opinion didn&#8217;t rally around the war, which could affect the trajectory of the research. Also, this study is predominantly focused on men within a particular age cohort, with women as a secondary thought. Pushing women as the focal point of my statistical analysis would be better fitting into the scope of research I&#8217;m doing, as opposing to placing female participation in the spheres Kecmanovic studies (education, employment, and earnings) as a secondary thought.<\/p>\n<p>[1] Milica Kecmanovic. \u201cThe Short-run Effects of the Croatian War on Education Employment, and Earnings,\u201d\u00a0<em>Journal of Conflict Resolution<\/em>\u00a057, 6 (2013), 991.<\/p>\n<p>[2]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>[3]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 1006.<\/p>\n<p>[4]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 1007.<\/p>\n<p>[5]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 1003.<\/p>\n<p>[6]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thinking with my neo-positivist hat on, my larger research puzzle is: What explains female involvement in peace-building processes? Or What explains the involvement of women or lack thereof in peace-building processes? One particular case study that I&#8217;ve been fascinated in&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/16\/research-portfolio-post-6-quantitative-data-sources\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":54,"date":"2018-10-01T02:31:58","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T06:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=54"},"modified":"2018-10-03T19:32:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T23:32:58","slug":"research-portfolio-post-5-research-topic-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/01\/research-portfolio-post-5-research-topic-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #5 (Research Topic Proposal)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I plan to research identity formation in the Balkans because I want to find out what explains the leadership of women in post-Balkan war peace-building, in order to help my reader understand whether there is a relationship between particular identity formation\/hierarchization and conflict resolution.<\/p>\n<p>Sexism is not a Southeastern European phenomenon, but the unique and deeply embedded historical components play into this Balkan narrative that inherently excludes women from the picture. The ambiguous governmental structures after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the ethnic wars that ensued have strongly supported the persistence of gender inequality in the Balkan.\u00a0[1] Balkan states are still far behind on basic pillars of gender equality compared to the measures their progressive European neighbors reached long before. Social justice reform is a difficult and unimportant item on Balkan political to-do lists.<\/p>\n<p>Why then, have women, after the brutal, nationalist wars that emerged between Balkan countries in the late nineties, during which ethnic cleansing, forced mobilization, and political unrest were poignant realities, lead the way in those peace-building efforts? Why, if Balkan women are so monumentally disadvantaged in so many other aspects of life, have they been the conflict resolution role models of the region? What explains this great female participation in a region that historically has held (and holds women) back in many (other) arenas?<\/p>\n<p>A number of women in Balkan countries have taken specific action in the past and are continuing to break barriers for gender equality today through strong conflict resolution measures. Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina have created women\u2019s courts designed to help women recover from the traumas they endured during the violent conflicts of the nineties. [2] Caterina Bonora and Daniela Lai describe the courts in their preliminary reflections of the Sarajevo Women\u2019s Court in their joint article: \u201cThe Women\u2019s Court\u2019s aim is to make survivors subjects of justice. To this end, the witnesses\/survivors were involved in the preparation process, which in the case of this Women\u2019s Court for the Balkans included consultations, seminars and public presentations realized throughout the region. Psychotherapists were there to support witnesses before, during and after their testimony, and witnesses sat together on the stage, providing support to each other in the emotional peaks of the testimonies.\u201d\u00a0[3] This court, created by women and for women, broke boundaries in terms of granting Balkan women a new platform to share their stories and attempt to reconcile their brutal personal histories for the sake of the future.<\/p>\n<p>Leading scholars in Bosnia began \u201can important triangle in feminist theological work that cross[ed] state and ethnonational borders and boundaries imposed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.&#8221; [4] \u201cIt erupted from the need to provide religious answers and comfort for the shame and guilt female survivors of sexual trauma felt,\u201d and developed into a methodology for women of all Abrahamistic traditions and ethnic groups to engage in powerful dialogue, even though they were once at war. [5] The network of women that feminist theology connected enabled, for the first time, collaboration by seemingly opposite \u201csides\u201d of the war. It initiated dialogue between women of seemingly opposite worlds.<\/p>\n<p>How did this female leadership in Balkan conflict resolution happen? What explains it? Well, different scholars point to different phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>Some scholars cite the aftermath of the wars of the 90s as vital components in forming female identity. \u201cVictimization, rape, nationality, and gender identities were interconnected as the conflict escalated,\u201d affecting generations of Balkan women and their families, who were left to cope with disintegrated families and the corporal and spiritual scars of a haunting past. [6] Violence against women was used as an instrument of war. \u201cFemininity was thus subordinated to nationality.\u201d [7] There was a complete dismissal of the basic humanity of women, particularly Serbian and Bosnian women, for the sake of male-driven political goals. But after the war was over, however, women had greater agency to respond to the trauma they endured as women, and so even though they were raped and hurt by the other, ethnic side, they were hurt women, so they could collaborate with and share stories with women of other national backgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>Another possible explanation is the imposition of ineffective solutions by unknowing outsiders for peace-building. \u201cTo the extent that Westerners view Central and Eastern Europeans as Other, it is argued, they will never understand the region or be able to help its people.\u201d [8] The countries of the Balkan, like many other countries around the world, are resistant to outside imposition, especially when it comes from the United States, a country they view as meddling and narcissistic. Balkan countries do not want to accept aid from perceived imperialists. Therefore, even though many outside states have attempted to shape peace building measures in the region, the Balkan is hesitant to accept it, so they\u2019ve been left to lead their peace-building movements themselves.<\/p>\n<p>While the Balkan region comprises a relatively quiet area of South Eastern Europe, the deeply rooted and powerful presence of sexism in the region has significant implications for the rest of Europe and the world. Because Europe is often seen as a utopia of liberal ideals like equality and democracy, issues like sexism in the somewhat subtle Balkans are easily swept under the rug. But can Europe really call itself a pillar of progressivism if there are other states within it far behind in the quest of true equality? As Romanian American International Politics student Andra Pascu challenged, \u201cIs a celebration truly in order? Are we entitled to be proud of modern democracy and our alleged progress?\u201d [9] Can equality truly be present when lack of consideration for certain outside injustices exists? This question is particularly significant when considering the European Union. The EU prides itself on its egalitarian values upheld by its member states, but can the European Union as an organization truly claim it is fighting for equality when its perception of it is exclusive to its members only? If yes, then how effective is an organization like that which measures equality by member consideration only? These are questions to which we as an international community have to answer in order to gain a greater understanding of what it is we truly stand for, both in the context of sexism in the Balkan and our general values as a global community<\/p>\n<p>In terms of peace-building lessons, how can countries better equip women to lead the efforts in conflict resolution? Or do they already have the tools they need, but they simply need to mobilize women to lead the way? Or will women know themselves? How is peace-building different when women are the ones initiating it? I feel like my research can have implications on all of the above.<\/p>\n<p>General question: What explains female involvement in peace-building processes? Or What explains the involvement of women or lack thereof in peace-building processes?<\/p>\n<p>Case-specific question: Why did women in the Balkans post-90s lead the way in peace-building processes?<\/p>\n<p>[1] Daniel Tudora, Alexandru Banica, and Marinela Istrate. \u201cEvaluation of Gender Disparities from the Balkan Countries,\u201d <em>Procedia Economics and Finance<\/em> 20, (2015), 663.<\/p>\n<p>[2]. Caterina Bonora and Daniela Lai. \u201cThe Sarajevo Women&#8217;s Court and Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia: Preliminary Reflections,\u201d Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa, 19 May 2015, &lt;www.balcanicaucaso.org\/eng\/Areas\/Bosnia-Herzegovina\/Dealing-with-the-past-through&gt; (Accessed: 30 September 2018).<\/p>\n<p>[3] Ibid.<\/p>\n<p>[4] Zilka Spahi\u0107-\u0160iljak. \u201cDo It and Name It: Feminist Theology and Peace Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina,\u201d <em>Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion<\/em> 29, 2 (2013), 181.<\/p>\n<p>[5] Ibid, 184.<\/p>\n<p>[6] Vlasta Jalu\u0161i\u010d. \u201cGender and Victimization of the Nation as Pre- and Post-War Identity Discourse,\u201d <em>The Violent Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Causes Dynamics and Effects<\/em> 15, (Nov. 2004), 145-165.<\/p>\n<p>[7] Ibid, 149.<\/p>\n<p>[8] Frances Elizabeth Olsen. \u201cFeminism in Central and Eastern Europe: Risks and Possibilities of American Engagement,\u201d <em>Yale Law Journal<\/em> 106, 7 (May 1997), 2222.<\/p>\n<p>[9] Andra Pascu. \u201cDemocracy\u2019s Deficit: Gender Inequality in the Balkans,\u201d Fox &amp; Hedgehog, 6 February 2017, &lt;www.foxhedgehog.com\/2015\/03\/democracys-deficit-gender inequality-in-the-balkans\/&gt; (Accessed: 30 September 2018).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I plan to research identity formation in the Balkans because I want to find out what explains the leadership of women in post-Balkan war peace-building, in order to help my reader understand whether there is a relationship between particular identity&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/10\/01\/research-portfolio-post-5-research-topic-proposal\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":51,"date":"2018-09-25T23:09:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T03:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=51"},"modified":"2018-09-25T23:12:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T03:12:05","slug":"research-portfolio-post-4-article-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-4-article-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #4 (Article Comparison)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In their piece, &#8220;Boys Must be Boys: Gender and the Serbian Radical Party, 1991\u20132000,&#8221; scholars and researchers Jill A. Irvine and Carol S. Lilly\u00a0focus on the conservative actions and beliefs of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and how they explain gender politics in the region\u2014both by paradoxically encouraging anti-feminist sentiment and also granting women working for the SRS party positions of power [1]. The article begins with an examination of \u201cpolitical nostalgia\u201d and its complex ability to enforce traditional, communal roles and identities, which innately includes the subjugation of women into subservient, quiet roles [2]. The authors argue that this promotion of political nostalgia gave (and gives) the Serbian Radical Party unique leverage in advocating for unjust and unequal practices [3]. The text gives historical context to gender inequality in former Yugoslavia and the ideologies that sustain sexism in the Balkan to this day [4]. The authors mainly use discourse analysis as their methodological approach to their research, citing interviews and speeches from people like SRS founder Vojislav Seselj, while also citing news paper articles, like those from Velika Srbija, during the time of SRS prosperity [5].<\/p>\n<p>The piece &#8220;Evaluation of Gender Disparities From the Balkan Countries&#8221; by Daniel Tudora, Alexandru Banica, and Marinela Istrate takes a quite different methodological approach to a broader theme of Balkan sexism, as opposed to the previous piece, but still provides a lot of context into the formation of conditions for women in the region. The authors introduce their topic of gender disparity evaluation by establishing their own place in the conversation. They claim that traditional gender indicators&#8211;Gender-Related Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure&#8211;are not adaptable to the &#8220;territorial context of the problem&#8221; [6]. Therefore, Tudora, Banica, and Istrate enter the conversation with the claim that the Balkans should be tested with several different indicators&#8211;cultural stereotypes, reproductive health, unemployment, longevity&#8211;and factor analyzed to truly understand the puzzle of Balkan gender disparity evolution [7]. In the authors&#8217; words, &#8220;Composing a final indicator of gender inequality will take into account the correlation matrix of the five variables entered in the analysis, so that by using the factorial analysis method will eliminate the redundancy between primary variables and by factors association shall identify social, economic or cultural elements affecting most obviously the Gender Equality in the Balkan Peninsula&#8221; [8]\u00a0The authors highlight the variables that go into forming perpetual trends of inequality in Balkan culture, from territorial set up, to traditional Yugoslav attitudes towards women, to socioeconomic disparity, all of which\u00a0will help give me the overview on Balkan gender inequality I need to have a solid foundation for my paper. Serving as a kind of concept formation piece rather than the explanatory scholarship, this piece serves as the basic point from which my understanding of the topic can really move forward because it has educated me on a most fundamental level\u2014what does sexism in the Balkan region really look like, in what social spheres or institutions does it manifest itself, and what do those realities mean for Balkan women in contemporary history.<\/p>\n<p>These two sources both aim to explain or engage with Balkan gender disparity evolution, though through different approaches and on different levels. The first article by Irvine and Lilly examines, through much discourse analysis, a very particular force in contemporary Serbian politics&#8211;the SRS&#8211;and sort of points the party&#8217;s unique garnering of political nostalgia as a driving force of gender identity evolution in the region. The second article, however, zooms out of that particular politically nationalistic factor, and takes a factor analysis approach to firstly, identify measurable factors of gender disparity in the Balkans, and then consequently measure where can these measures be seen in the region, where are they seen the most, and if\/how they reveal themselves. I believe the &#8220;Boys Must be Boys&#8221; piece would be great scholarship to include in my research, by pointing to tangible conclusions about a historically prominent (and enduring) masculinized, nationalistic party in Serbia and its forging of gender disparity. The second piece, as previously stated, I believe will serve as a kind of concept formation piece rather than the explanatory scholarship, informing me of vital background to understanding the broader regional evolution of gender identity and disparity.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1] Jill A. Irvine and Carol S. Lilly. \u201cBoys Must be Boys: Gender and the Serbian Radical Party, 1991-2000,\u201d <em>Nationalities Papers<\/em>\u00a035, no. 1 (March 2007), 94.<\/p>\n<p>[2] <em>Ibid<\/em>, 96.<\/p>\n<p>[3] <em>Ibid<\/em>, 94.<\/p>\n<p>[4] <em>Ibid<\/em>, 112.<\/p>\n<p>[5]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 94 and 107.<\/p>\n<p>[6]\u00a0Daniel Tudora, Alexandru Banica, and Marinela Istrate. &#8220;Evaluation of Gender Disparities from the Balkan Countries,&#8221;\u00a0<em>Procedia Economics and Finance<\/em> 20, (2015), 654.<\/p>\n<p>[7] <i>Ibid<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>[8]\u00a0<em>Ibid<\/em>, 656.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In their piece, &#8220;Boys Must be Boys: Gender and the Serbian Radical Party, 1991\u20132000,&#8221; scholars and researchers Jill A. Irvine and Carol S. Lilly\u00a0focus on the conservative actions and beliefs of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and how they explain&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-4-article-comparison\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":50,"date":"2018-09-25T05:13:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T05:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=50"},"modified":"2018-09-25T23:12:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T03:12:24","slug":"research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #3 (Philosophical Wagers)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The broad philosophical framework of research involves many different dimensions that build up to greater scholarly inquiry. Ontology and methodology namely comprise these levels that inform inquiry, both in terms of the research puzzle itself and how we go about engaging with that puzzle. Every researcher brings his or her own preconceived notions to the conversation, even though we all hopefully try as hard as we can to go into a project as clean slates, ready to mold to the shape of the project, not mold the direction ourselves. This internal dialogue and challenging of notions should be constant processes for researches to produce the strongest project&#8211;that is, the project that best reflects the researcher&#8217;s &#8220;intellectual personality,&#8221; as Abbott names, and takes the approaches to navigating the puzzle that best suit the puzzle&#8217;s needs.<\/p>\n<p>A central, and initial building block of research is ontology. As per our class lesson about the philosophy of science, ontology is defined as the beliefs we as individuals hold about the nature of reality. In other words, how do we conceptualize the world, and how should we go about understanding it? [1] This interpretative level is vital in forming research puzzles. By viewing the world in a certain light&#8211;choosing a &#8220;side&#8221; within the &#8220;basic debates&#8221; as Abbott refers to them&#8211;there are profound implications on what kinds of questions will be asked, what kinds of analyses are done, what kinds of conclusions will be drawn, and what significances are extracted from those conclusions. [2] The two main ontological commitments are objectivism and (philosophical) constructivism. Objectivists believe in the stability and endurance of the social world. They look for universal rules that govern our social world, regardless of independent social actors. Constructivists, however, believe social phenomena are continuously formed by social actors and therefore always changing and immeasurable. Neither of these ontological approaches is correct or incorrect. They are simply different and are derived from different ways of looking at the world. They are, however, incredibly important to understanding a researcher and the products of his or her labor because the implications on what their research has concluded are vast.<\/p>\n<p>Methodology, another perhaps more logistically operative building block of research, is the study of the particular tools for research and analyses scholars use to collect their data. [3] Research methodology, like ontology, is an informed decision of how to approach research. Researchers have a wide array of research tools they can use&#8211;interviews, regression analysis, formal modeling, discourse analysis, etc. A researcher&#8217;s self-placement on the spectrum of methodology\/methods speaks a lot to what his or her research is aiming to accomplish, and informs the findings of the research as well. It is important to understand methodology as a particular choice for research, and not simply a discussion about qualitative vs. qualitative data collection. All methodological approaches generally accepted by the community of scholars within a particular field hold their own scientific and logical standings that can merit the findings of the research. It is important to understand methodologies so that we can properly assess research findings on our own and understand what they are truly telling us.<\/p>\n<p>It is important for every researcher to enter scholarly inquiry with this knowledge about how other people have approached their puzzles in the past, so that we are aware what implicit or open commitments we are imposing on our projects. While the aim of this understanding is to bring us to a place as close to objectivity as possible, I believe the most important lesson of these research knowledge studies is an openness to different approaches and understandings of our topics. A lot of us are probably coming in with preconceived notions attached to our puzzles, even in these embryonic stages. I know I have a lot that comes to mind with my topic relating to the Balkans, as my entire family history is there. But if we are exposed to different ontological, epistemological, and methodological frameworks, and we trust the puzzle enough to form our inner framework approaches to its exploration, we open up so many avenues for research of strong scholarly merit.<\/p>\n<p>[1] Arron P. Boesenecker. \u201cPhilosophy of Science: How Do We Know What We Know.\u201d Discussion, American University, Washington D.C., August 30, 2018<\/p>\n<p>[2] Andrew Abbott. \u201cBasic Debates and Methodological Practices,\u201d in\u00a0<em>Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences,\u00a0<\/em>ed. Jeffrey C. Alexander\u00a0(New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 2004), 42.<\/p>\n<p>[3] Arron P. Boesenecker. \u201cPhilosophy of Science: How Do We Know What We Know.\u201d Discussion, American University, Washington D.C., August 30, 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The broad philosophical framework of research involves many different dimensions that build up to greater scholarly inquiry. Ontology and methodology namely comprise these levels that inform inquiry, both in terms of the research puzzle itself and how we go about&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/25\/research-portfolio-post-3-philosophical-wagers\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":48,"date":"2018-09-19T23:07:05","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T23:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=48"},"modified":"2018-12-08T01:05:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T05:05:59","slug":"research-portfolio-post-2-mentor-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/19\/research-portfolio-post-2-mentor-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #2 (Mentor Meeting)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past week I was able to meet with my faculty mentor, Dr. Rose Shinko, for the first time in order to share my research interests with her and see how I can approach discovering potential puzzles within my thematic\/regional interests.<\/p>\n<p>I went into my meeting with Dr. Shinko quite timidly, fearing that the regional focus of my project, and the nature of my project grappling with gender identity was too narrowly defined&#8211;that by virtue of choosing what I believed to be endemic geographical and thematic areas, there were not many research questions to articulate. But during our meeting, Dr. Shinko and I were about to zoom out on the project qualities that I predetermined to see how much space there is within my frame of research to explore. I thought that by electing to research gender identity for Balkan women, I was limiting myself by being too specific too soon, but, as Dr. Shinko highlighted, there are so many potential foci within my topic. The topic of gender is vast and can be analyzed through a variety of lenses to imply many different things. I can research the role of women in the peace building process&#8211;did personal identities for women shape their leadership in reconciliation and rehabilitation after the wars of the 90s? How did women channel their hurtful experiences into effective mediums for change after the end of the wars? I can research the historical imposition of notions of female identity on Balkan identity&#8211;How did that change after the wars? Why\/How were women politicized during the war, and how did this politicization revolutionize military policy? Did this politicization cause women to have to seek peace for themselves after the war was over? What was the framework that enabled women to take peace building leadership into their own hands on an unprecedented level for the region? There are so many directions that I can take my project to wrestle with this general puzzle of identity formation\/internal identity hierarchy for women. This makes my job harder, because there is so much research and research I need to do in order to articulate a specific puzzle that fits into this theme, but it also makes me relieved that I still have so much exploration to do&#8211;topic and region haven&#8217;t defined everything for me.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Shinko recommended several different types of sources to engage with to really understand the full scope of my topic. She recommended a wide variety of primary sources to look into, in order to gain exposure to as many different ways of expression for women of the region as possible. She suggested listening to interviews with Balkan women who were deeply affected by the war, with a PBS series titled, &#8220;Women, War, and Peace&#8221; particularly capturing my interest. Within this series, PBS has a feature documentary on Bosnian Women called &#8220;I Came to Testify,&#8221; which captures the violent exploitation of women as a political tool, and the profound strength some women had after the war was over to stand up to their aggressors in court [1]. She also mentioned studying art and literature in order to gain a better understanding of female experiences during the time, and gain greater insight into gender identity formations\/changes during that time. Dr. Shinko also said that this could be a pillar of my research project on its own&#8211;the analysis of art as a medium for healing after the atrocities women enduring during the time.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond making me feel more comfortable with the embryonic and explorative stages of my research project, Dr. Shinko gave me specific recommendations which will allow me to probe and discover different interests and topics within my general research puzzles. I am very much looking forward to meeting with her again in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>[1]\u00a0\u201cI Came to Testify\u201d (PBS, 2011), accessed September 12, 2018, http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/women-war-and-peace\/full-episodes\/i-came-to-testify\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past week I was able to meet with my faculty mentor, Dr. Rose Shinko, for the first time in order to share my research interests with her and see how I can approach discovering potential puzzles within my thematic\/regional&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/19\/research-portfolio-post-2-mentor-meeting\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mentorship","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":36,"date":"2018-09-04T06:53:20","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T06:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/?p=36"},"modified":"2018-09-25T23:13:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T03:13:02","slug":"research-portfolio-post-1-research-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/04\/research-portfolio-post-1-research-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Portfolio Post #1 (Research Interests)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0proposal I attached to my Olsen Scholars application was\u00a0entitled, &#8220;An Exploration of the Relationship Between Balkan Historical and Cultural Identity and Women,&#8221; but\u00a0retrospectively I&#8217;m not sure what exactly that means for where I&#8217;m going with my research.\u00a0My topic is very broad as it stands,\u00a0but that is intentional, I don&#8217;t quite\u00a0know the thematic area on which I want to focus specifically.\u00a0\u00a0What I do know is that I want to\u00a0investigate the Balkan history, culture, and the \u201cisms\u201d that are ingrained within identities for Balkan people, particularly women.<\/p>\n<p>I have special interest in this topic because it is culturally relevant to me&#8211;I am the daughter of two immigrants from former Yugoslavia. Reaching some conclusions about the questions I and many others have is key in dismantling the lack of transparency in Balkan storytelling. I&#8217;ve felt the firsthand presence of conflicting narratives among\u00a0Balkan states, along with the\u00a0the general, detached impositions of opinion and perception\u00a0on the Balkan by oftentimes unknowing outsiders.\u00a0It is my desire to look further into these divisions between Balkan states during the 90s to examine where exactly they stem from&#8211;which identities are people most attached to&#8211;religious, national, ethnic, gender, political, a combination of these&#8211;and how these internal commitments translate into political realities (past and present) in the region. How\u00a0have these factors manifested themselves? How have they driven conflict? How do they a play a role in current peacemaking operations? I find\u00a0this topic\u00a0to be vastly important in understanding Europe as it stands. While Europe is often seen as a liberal, egalitarian utopia, Balkan issues have been continuously undermined and dismissed. Is Europe, then, really a pillar of progressivism if within it are states far behind in the quest for true equality? Is a celebration truly in order, if a relatively large chunk of Southeastern Europe contains such a contemporary and such a harsh history of injustice, particularly for women and children?<\/p>\n<p>I want to initiate research that paints an all-encompassing, relevant, picture of Balkan history. I want to accomplish this by asking the following questions: How can southeastern European nations&#8211;Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia&#8211;sustain structures of deep gender inequality in the middle of liberal Europe? How has the intimate relationship between masculinity and nationalism perpetuated the continual conflict among Balkan nations and the internal political instability of each state? How have strong religious identities or structures strengthened gender norms or nationalism and led to violence against women and ethnic groups? What identities hold the most weight&#8211;ethnic, religious, gender, or political? What about for women? How did the exclusion of women in visible spaces increase or induce conflict? Has that changed post-war? Were women better off pre or post-Yugoslav dissolution? How did the suppression of international disagreements under communism enhance the conflict later on? How did outside dismissal of Balkan conflict further the issues there? How did lessened economic circumstances induce conflict? How did media contribute to unveiling the conflict to the rest of the world? How did media internally within each nation propagandize what was going on? Where do Balkan nations go from here?<\/p>\n<p>I realize that these preceding questions don&#8217;t necessarily relate to one another directly, but in putting them forward, and keeping them all in mind as preliminary and broad\u00a0markers before I really define my project, I aim to highlight the many aspects that have gone into\u00a0shaping all the complexities of the region&#8217;s contemporary history, and to keep the space open for whatever thematic and political realm for which they might have the greatest implications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0proposal I attached to my Olsen Scholars application was\u00a0entitled, &#8220;An Exploration of the Relationship Between Balkan Historical and Cultural Identity and Women,&#8221; but\u00a0retrospectively I&#8217;m not sure what exactly that means for where I&#8217;m going with my research.\u00a0My topic is very&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/2018\/09\/04\/research-portfolio-post-1-research-interests\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2633,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-sisolson","category-sisolson18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2633"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edspace.american.edu\/milenabozovic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]