Back to the future: Temporality and gender security narratives in Serbia

Abstract

Contemporary debates about security narratives highlight different forms of security: gender security, realist security or human security. The use of such terms often means that we do not recognize subtle variances within these narratives or the implications of these divergences. This article suggests and illustrates a way of achieving a deeper understanding of security narratives through investigating the temporal aspects of narrative content. A case study exploring three forms of gender security narratives among activists of feminist and women’s organizations in Serbia is used to demonstrate that similar perceptions of gender security exist. However, paying attention to the temporal discontinuities within the contents of these gender security narratives makes it possible to identify divergences connected to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict. These subtle variations in content are potentially product and productive of different policy prescriptions and outcomes. This article concludes by reflecting upon the presence of our past and future in the contents of our contemporary security narratives, suggesting that when we consider security, our analysis should aim to incorporate an understanding of the temporal nature of a security narrative.