War, Feminist Activism and Identity in Croatia (1990 -1995): Case Study of four Feminist NGOs

This study is concerned with feminist activism in Croatia in the years of the war from 1991 - 1995, and the impact of feminist and national identity on feminist activism. The research is limited to four feminist NGO's and their activists. The objectives of this study is to explore the Croatian feminist activisms in relation to activists definitions of feminist and national identities in the context of war and to give recognition to women's activism during the war in Croatia in 1991-95. The study is qualitative and explorative using primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected through interviews, during fieldwork in Croatia. My main theoretical approaches are derived from the analyses of national and ethnic identities, feminist critique of these concepts, and studies of women and war. I looked at how women define their gender, feminist and ethnic identities at the individual level and then at organisational level; how those feminist organisations were established, and how they cooperated with each other. The main point of disputes and differentiations among feminists was an understanding of war rape. Some feminists emphasised the importance of ethnicity, others talked about women being raped because they were women, in the first place. Dominant discourses were focussed on ethnicity as main element of exclusion or inclusion, which was marked by women as symbolic and bodily markers of those ethnic boundaries. This research paper shows that feminist activists in Croatia have found many different ways to deal with the boundaries set by newly established state. Some allowed the victim-status as morally just only to victims within those boundaries, ethnically defined. Others rejected the primacy of ethnically defined victims and perpetrators, and focussed on the gender aspect of war crimes against women.