From Gender Re-Traditionalizations to Anti-Gender Mobilizations: Care for Family in Serbia and Croatia

Abstract

This article focuses on the cases of Croatia and Serbia to demonstrate how the heteronormative model of family and the constructs of “protection of family and children”—which are central to anti-gender mobilizations—can be traced to the 1990s heteronationalist discourses of family in both countries. The authors argue that the crucial link between these two discourses is that they both increasingly problematize diverse family forms and imbue “traditional family” with special value as the structure that is “best for children” and therefore merits special legal and policy protection with a view to its restoration as society’s unquestionable cornerstone. The analysis of narrative content in parliamentary and public debates about family-related laws and policies in Serbia and Croatia between the 1990s and the 2020s is guided by the following questions: What are the continuities in the legal framework and narratives on the family in post-socialist Croatia and Serbia compared with the period of socialist Yugoslavia? Who are the actors who create narratives of return to a traditional family in post-socialist Croatia and Serbia, and how do these actors define family and care for the family? The article calls attention to how what is “old”—narratives of return to the traditional family—forms the backbone of religious-conservative oppositions to gender and sexuality rights, including the most recent wave of anti-gender mobilizations.