The topic of this thesis is the problem of the construction of identity of religious
LGBT people in Serbia at the beginning of the 21st century.
The thesis consists of three parts:
1. Designing the theory that would serve as a framework for examining the processes
of identity formation,
2. Determining the locus that non-heterosexuality and religion occupy in the
contemporary Serbian society (description of the mise-en-scène in which the actors shape
their identities), and
3. Verifying the theoretical construct on empirical material.
At the beginning of the first part, the thesis attempts to clarify the concept of identity.
This is followed by an overview of the sociological considerations of identity which are
relevant for the topic of the thesis. A critical analysis of the conceptualization of identities as
“necessary fictions” concludes the first part of the thesis. Symbolic interactionism,
phenomenological sociology, and social constructionism appear as the richest as well as the
mo...st useful conceptual resources for the “assembly” of the interpretive framework for
deliberating the notion of identity. The works of Anthony Giddens are consulted in the
consideration of the functioning of identity in the late modern society, while the political
dimension of identities is perceived through Jeffrey Weeks’ vision of “radical pluralism”.
The social context, that comprises the structural frame in which the construction of
identity of non-heterosexual believers takes place, is delineated in the second part of the
thesis. The position of homosexuality in the Serbian society and the predominant attitude
towards homosexuality in the religious field are determined. Firstly, the ways in which
homosexuality was understood (and thus shaped) within the medical discourse during the
second half of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century are described. This is
followed by an overview of the existing survey findings of attitudes on
homosexuals/homosexuality in Serbia and by a historical synopsis of the legal treatment of
the same-sex behavior, beginning with the medieval sources and concluding with the present
day legal acts.
What follows is the review of the attitudes of religious officials toward nonheterosexuality,
which have been brought forth regularly at every announcement or holding
of the gay parade in the capital. The data from several social surveys provide an insight into
the relation between the level of religiosity and the type of attitude toward the same-sex
inclined part of the population.
The third part of the thesis begins with the examination of the existing theoretical
discussions and empirical investigations of the identity of religious non-heterosexuals, with an
attempt to establish typical “maneuvers” performed in the construction of identity. The
attention is, then, focused on “spirituality”, a concept which plays the central role in the
analysis of the aforementioned processes.
After providing an insight into the methodological procedure used to gather the
empirical material, the third part ends with using the outlined types to consider the interaction
of religious and sexual identity – their shaping through negotiation, in opposition to the
concomitant resistance. The thesis finally analyzes the ways of shaping religiosity and its
functioning within members of a stigmatized and marginalized social group – the experience
of LGBT persons and their positioning as “religious queers” in the intersection of the spheres
which the dominant culture sets as conflicting and exclusive. The emphasis in the analysis is
placed on the role of the narratives in constructing the identity of the members of this
population, as well as on the strategies of the conception, validation and enactment of the
coherent identity.
