Elissa Helms
Biographic Data
| ID | 77924 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elissa Helms |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elissa |
| FAMILY NAME | Helms |
| SIGNATURE | HELMS E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Central European University |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-6002-0996 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Genocide and the Bosnian war through a gender lens
This article uses examples from the 1992–1995 Bosnian war and its aftermath to illustrate how a gender lens helps to understand the category of genocide, both in legal and in popular terms. The one event in the Bosnian war that was ruled to be genocide was the sex-selective killings of over 8000 Bosnian Muslim men during the Bosnian Serb Army’s takeover of the Srebrenica “Safe Area” from July 11, 1995. Assumptions about gender and culture—that th…
Race in place: Scales of difference along the Balkan Route of migration
Borders of desire: Gender and sexuality at the Eastern borders of Europe
Borders of Desire is a collection of studies from the eastern borders of Europe, particularly the Baltics and the Balkans, that take a novel approach to borders and the work they do. Instead of viewing borders only as obstructions to the fulfillment of desire, this book shows how borders produce desire, particularly gendered and sexualized desire
Social Boundaries at the EU Border: Engaged Ethnography and Migrant Solidarity in Bihać, Bosnia–Herzegovina
This paper is a reflexive examination of ethnographic positionality in the Bosnian border town of Bihać as it experienced a bottleneck of migrants and refugees from outside of Europe attempting to reach prosperous EU states by traversing the Balkan Route of irregular migration. Drawing from critical border studies and the principles of engaged ethnography, I approach the relational quality of life on the border as it shapes and also produces soci…
The challenges of gendering genocide: Reflections on a feminist politics of complexity
Transformations of gender, sexuality and citizenship in Southeast Europe: New lenses for new, and not so new, times
Rejecting Angelina: Bosnian War Rape Survivors and the Ambiguities of Sex in War
Before Angelina Jolie's 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the rape of women in the Bosnian war, was filmed, a group of Bosnian women war rape survivors persuaded local government officials to revoke Jolie's onlocation filming permit. The survivors' objections were based on a rumor, subsequently refuted, that the plot was a love story between a Bosnian Muslim woman and her Serb rapist. This paper analyzes these objections, their subs…
Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women’s Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina
The 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia became notorious for ethnic cleansing and mass rapes targeting the Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) population. Postwar social and political processes have continued to be dominated by competing nationalisms representing Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, as well as those supporting a multiethnic Bosnian state, in which narratives of victimhood take centre stage, often in g…
The gender of coffee
This article explores the gendering of reconciliation initiatives from the perspective of Bosniac women active in women's NGOs in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. I illustrate how established patriarchal gender relations and socialistera models of women's community involvement framed the ways in which some women's NGO participants constructed essential ethno-national and gender differences, in contrast to dominant donor discourses. This leads to …
Reconsidering Postsocialism from the Margins of Europe: Hope, Time and Normalcy in Post-Yugoslav Societies
East and West Kiss: Gender, Orientalism, and Balkanism in Muslim-Majority Bosnia-Herzegovina
Through an ethnographic analysis of public and "everyday" discourses in the Muslim-majority area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article shows how gender is frequently constitutive of orientalist and balkanist representations. Both orientalism and balkanism have recently undergone a shift, precisely in the ways in which they are gendered. Women have become more visible symbols of Balkan backwardness while orientalist depictions have moved from emphas…
The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society
Contents: Introduction. Part 1 Beyond 'Ethnicity': 'Imitation of life': negotiating normality in Sarajevo under siege, Ivana Macek Urban exile: locals, newcomers and the cultural transformation of Sarajevo, Anders Stefansson Sarajevo no more? Identity and the sense of place among Bosnian Serb Sarajevans in Republika Srpska, Ioannis Armakolas The power of 'armchair politicians': ethnic loyalty and political factionalism among Herzegovinian Croats,…
Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003
Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003
Review Article| March 01 2006 Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003 Elissa Helms Elissa Helms Central European University, Budapest Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (2006) 2 (1): 140–143. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-2006-1010 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Elissa Helms; Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003. Journal of…
Gendered Transformations of State Power: Masculinity, International Intervention, and the Bosnian Police
Many Bosnians I talked to were skeptical about my plan to do research among local police in the central Bosnian town of Zenica. They told me that no one would talk to me there. “They're too scared of foreigners,” they said, meaning especially Westerners who might be connected to the powerful international institutions that have acted as de facto protectorate to the fragmented and unstable state after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia and the d…
Women as agents of ethnic reconciliation? women's ngos and international intervention in postwar bosnia–herzegovina
East and West Kiss: Gender, Orientalism, and Balkanism in Muslim-Majority Bosnia-Herzegovina
Through an ethnographic analysis of public and "everyday" discourses in the Muslim-majority area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article shows how gender is frequently constitutive of orientalist and balkanist representations. Both orientalism and balkanism have recently undergone a shift, precisely in the ways in which they are gendered. Women have become more visible symbols of Balkan backwardness while orientalist depictions have moved from emphas…
Women as agents of ethnic reconciliation? women's ngos and international intervention in postwar bosnia–herzegovina
The gender of coffee
This article explores the gendering of reconciliation initiatives from the perspective of Bosniac women active in women's NGOs in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. I illustrate how established patriarchal gender relations and socialistera models of women's community involvement framed the ways in which some women's NGO participants constructed essential ethno-national and gender differences, in contrast to dominant donor discourses. This leads to …
Rejecting Angelina: Bosnian War Rape Survivors and the Ambiguities of Sex in War
Before Angelina Jolie's 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the rape of women in the Bosnian war, was filmed, a group of Bosnian women war rape survivors persuaded local government officials to revoke Jolie's onlocation filming permit. The survivors' objections were based on a rumor, subsequently refuted, that the plot was a love story between a Bosnian Muslim woman and her Serb rapist. This paper analyzes these objections, their subs…
Reconsidering Postsocialism from the Margins of Europe: Hope, Time and Normalcy in Post-Yugoslav Societies
Gendered Transformations of State Power: Masculinity, International Intervention, and the Bosnian Police
Many Bosnians I talked to were skeptical about my plan to do research among local police in the central Bosnian town of Zenica. They told me that no one would talk to me there. “They're too scared of foreigners,” they said, meaning especially Westerners who might be connected to the powerful international institutions that have acted as de facto protectorate to the fragmented and unstable state after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia and the d…
Social Boundaries at the EU Border: Engaged Ethnography and Migrant Solidarity in Bihać, Bosnia–Herzegovina
This paper is a reflexive examination of ethnographic positionality in the Bosnian border town of Bihać as it experienced a bottleneck of migrants and refugees from outside of Europe attempting to reach prosperous EU states by traversing the Balkan Route of irregular migration. Drawing from critical border studies and the principles of engaged ethnography, I approach the relational quality of life on the border as it shapes and also produces soci…
Race in place: Scales of difference along the Balkan Route of migration
Borders of desire: Gender and sexuality at the Eastern borders of Europe
Borders of Desire is a collection of studies from the eastern borders of Europe, particularly the Baltics and the Balkans, that take a novel approach to borders and the work they do. Instead of viewing borders only as obstructions to the fulfillment of desire, this book shows how borders produce desire, particularly gendered and sexualized desire
Women as agents of ethnic reconciliation? women's ngos and international intervention in postwar bosnia–herzegovina
Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003
Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003
Review Article| March 01 2006 Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003 Elissa Helms Elissa Helms Central European University, Budapest Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Middle East Women's Studies (2006) 2 (1): 140–143. https://doi.org/10.1215/15525864-2006-1010 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Elissa Helms; Picture Me an Enemy, Nathalie Applewhite, 2003. Journal of…
Gendered Transformations of State Power: Masculinity, International Intervention, and the Bosnian Police
Many Bosnians I talked to were skeptical about my plan to do research among local police in the central Bosnian town of Zenica. They told me that no one would talk to me there. “They're too scared of foreigners,” they said, meaning especially Westerners who might be connected to the powerful international institutions that have acted as de facto protectorate to the fragmented and unstable state after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia and the d…
The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society
Contents: Introduction. Part 1 Beyond 'Ethnicity': 'Imitation of life': negotiating normality in Sarajevo under siege, Ivana Macek Urban exile: locals, newcomers and the cultural transformation of Sarajevo, Anders Stefansson Sarajevo no more? Identity and the sense of place among Bosnian Serb Sarajevans in Republika Srpska, Ioannis Armakolas The power of 'armchair politicians': ethnic loyalty and political factionalism among Herzegovinian Croats,…
Reconsidering Postsocialism from the Margins of Europe: Hope, Time and Normalcy in Post-Yugoslav Societies
East and West Kiss: Gender, Orientalism, and Balkanism in Muslim-Majority Bosnia-Herzegovina
Through an ethnographic analysis of public and "everyday" discourses in the Muslim-majority area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article shows how gender is frequently constitutive of orientalist and balkanist representations. Both orientalism and balkanism have recently undergone a shift, precisely in the ways in which they are gendered. Women have become more visible symbols of Balkan backwardness while orientalist depictions have moved from emphas…
The gender of coffee
This article explores the gendering of reconciliation initiatives from the perspective of Bosniac women active in women's NGOs in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. I illustrate how established patriarchal gender relations and socialistera models of women's community involvement framed the ways in which some women's NGO participants constructed essential ethno-national and gender differences, in contrast to dominant donor discourses. This leads to …
Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women’s Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina
The 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia became notorious for ethnic cleansing and mass rapes targeting the Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) population. Postwar social and political processes have continued to be dominated by competing nationalisms representing Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, as well as those supporting a multiethnic Bosnian state, in which narratives of victimhood take centre stage, often in g…
Transformations of gender, sexuality and citizenship in Southeast Europe: New lenses for new, and not so new, times
Rejecting Angelina: Bosnian War Rape Survivors and the Ambiguities of Sex in War
Before Angelina Jolie's 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the rape of women in the Bosnian war, was filmed, a group of Bosnian women war rape survivors persuaded local government officials to revoke Jolie's onlocation filming permit. The survivors' objections were based on a rumor, subsequently refuted, that the plot was a love story between a Bosnian Muslim woman and her Serb rapist. This paper analyzes these objections, their subs…
The challenges of gendering genocide: Reflections on a feminist politics of complexity
Social Boundaries at the EU Border: Engaged Ethnography and Migrant Solidarity in Bihać, Bosnia–Herzegovina
This paper is a reflexive examination of ethnographic positionality in the Bosnian border town of Bihać as it experienced a bottleneck of migrants and refugees from outside of Europe attempting to reach prosperous EU states by traversing the Balkan Route of irregular migration. Drawing from critical border studies and the principles of engaged ethnography, I approach the relational quality of life on the border as it shapes and also produces soci…
Borders of desire: Gender and sexuality at the Eastern borders of Europe
Borders of Desire is a collection of studies from the eastern borders of Europe, particularly the Baltics and the Balkans, that take a novel approach to borders and the work they do. Instead of viewing borders only as obstructions to the fulfillment of desire, this book shows how borders produce desire, particularly gendered and sexualized desire
Race in place: Scales of difference along the Balkan Route of migration
Genocide and the Bosnian war through a gender lens
This article uses examples from the 1992–1995 Bosnian war and its aftermath to illustrate how a gender lens helps to understand the category of genocide, both in legal and in popular terms. The one event in the Bosnian war that was ruled to be genocide was the sex-selective killings of over 8000 Bosnian Muslim men during the Bosnian Serb Army’s takeover of the Srebrenica “Safe Area” from July 11, 1995. Assumptions about gender and culture—that th…
Sociology (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Politics (9 works) · Balkans: History, Politics, Society (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Bosnian (6 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (5 works)