ABSTRACT
This conclusion recapitulates the main findings and contributions in this book. It is an ethnography of women politicians in the politically sensitive environments of Serbia and Kosovo/athatinvestigates the ways in which women imagined, constructed, and politicised their national identity and gender, as they actively engaged with politics in the context of the as yet understudied process of democratisation. The book highlights a profound paradox. In navigating between national and gender identities and everyday work in the nationalist contexts of Serbia and Kosovo/a, women politicians attained a certain degree of agency and emancipation. However, the discourse remained fundamentally patriarchal and, therefore, subordinating for women. Women politicians predominantly politicised their biological roles as reproducers, mothers, sisters, educators, and contributors to the ethnie in pursuit of greater gender equality with their men. The ongoing democratisation process opened space for greater political participation of women. It did not, however, automatically make political space safe for women. Traditional gender and ethnie roles, and patriarchal narratives still dominated political space and affected women’s political strategies as they were constantly required to negotiate between different ethnie and gender demands in order to survive in politics.
