Knowledge Production and Public Policies in Serbia: Pro and Contra Gender Mainstreaming

The paper analyzes the knowledge production of gender equality policies in Serbia after 2000 in the academic and non-academic context. The text problematizes the interactions and links between gendered knowledge productionin academia and policymaking taking as an example conceptualization of gender mainstreaming. The key issues addressed in the paper concern perception, implementation and validation of gender mainstreaming in an academic and public policy context. The text discusses the ways in which the gender mainstreaming is included in gendered knowledge production in academia in Serbia, but also at the European level. The author argues that practical knowledge of gender policies is not sufficiently integrated into formal academic practice in Serbia, although it is one of the key conditions for further development of academic knowledge on current sociopolitical processes. The author also problematizes relations between key concepts for feminist practices and knowledge production: academic/theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge/public policy, activism and professionalism, local and transnational feminism, as well as empowerment and gender mainstreaming. Taking as an example an international debate for and against the gender mainstreaming the author raise potential issues for launching similar debates within the feminist academic and non-academic community in Serbia.