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Outputs (49)

Lion of Love: Representations of Russian Homosexuality and Homophobia in Netflix’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2024)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2024). Lion of Love: Representations of Russian Homosexuality and Homophobia in Netflix’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Historical reflections, 50(2), 61-76. https://doi.org/10.3167/hrrh.2024.500205

Alexander Lemtov, the Russian antagonist of Netflix's 2020 musical comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, embodies and dramatizes contentions over Russian homophobia, disavowals of homosexuality in Russian entertainment, and the cons... Read More about Lion of Love: Representations of Russian Homosexuality and Homophobia in Netflix’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

‘Can I Be Gay in the Army?’: British Army recruitment advertising to LGBTQ youth in 2017–18 and belonging in the queer military home (2022)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2023). ‘Can I Be Gay in the Army?’: British Army recruitment advertising to LGBTQ youth in 2017–18 and belonging in the queer military home. Critical military studies, 9(3), 442-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2022.2113960

In 2017, the British Army opened its ‘This is Belonging’ recruitment campaign, aimed at groups of young people who were considered traditionally less likely to join the Army, with marketing at Pride in London aimed at LGBTQ youth. The campaign’s next... Read More about ‘Can I Be Gay in the Army?’: British Army recruitment advertising to LGBTQ youth in 2017–18 and belonging in the queer military home.

Your race sounds familiar? Blackface, cross-racial/cross-gender drag and the Your Face Sounds Familiar franchise (2013–) on post-Yugoslav television (2021)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2021). Your race sounds familiar? Blackface, cross-racial/cross-gender drag and the Your Face Sounds Familiar franchise (2013–) on post-Yugoslav television. VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, 10(20), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.18146/view.267

Your Face Sounds Familiar, a celebrity talent television format developed by the Dutch production company Endemol and first broadcast in Spain in 2011, has entertained audiences in more than forty countries with the sight of well-known professional m... Read More about Your race sounds familiar? Blackface, cross-racial/cross-gender drag and the Your Face Sounds Familiar franchise (2013–) on post-Yugoslav television.

Guarding the “Balkan Route” on the postsocialist frontier: revisiting Maja Weiss’ Varuh meje (2002) (2021)
Journal Article
Baker, C., Szczygielska, M., & Drnovšek Zorko, Š. (2021). Guarding the “Balkan Route” on the postsocialist frontier: revisiting Maja Weiss’ Varuh meje (2002). International Feminist Journal of Politics, 23(5), 811-828. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2021.1991827

Introduction Varuh meje, Maja Weiss’ debut film, dates back to 2002 – when Slovenia was soon to join the European Union (EU), when the state was first taking up its role as EU “border guard,” and when Slovenian society was reacting to the first wave... Read More about Guarding the “Balkan Route” on the postsocialist frontier: revisiting Maja Weiss’ Varuh meje (2002).

Peace on the Small Screen: UNPROFOR’s Television Unit in 1994–5 and the ‘Media War’ in Former Yugoslavia (2021)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (in press). Peace on the Small Screen: UNPROFOR’s Television Unit in 1994–5 and the ‘Media War’ in Former Yugoslavia. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 42(2), 344-371. https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2021.1948205

Between early 1994 and the end of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a team of journalists working for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR) was in charge of a unique televisual experiment–a documentary film... Read More about Peace on the Small Screen: UNPROFOR’s Television Unit in 1994–5 and the ‘Media War’ in Former Yugoslavia.

A War of Songs. Popular Music and Recent Russia–Ukraine Relations: Arve Hansen, Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar Steinholt & David-Emil Wickström. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2019, 247pp., €34.90 p/b. (2020)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2020). A War of Songs. Popular Music and Recent Russia–Ukraine Relations: Arve Hansen, Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar Steinholt & David-Emil Wickström. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2019, 247pp., €34.90 p/b. Europe-Asia Studies, 72(8), 1426-1427. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2020.1814605

Celebrity leader personas and embodied militarism (2020)
Journal Article
Baker, C., Jackson, S. T., Crilley, R., Manor, I., Oshikoya, M., Joachim, J., …Enloe, C. (2021). Celebrity leader personas and embodied militarism. International studies review, 23(3), 1046-1071. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa035

Scholars of international relations frequently explore how states normalize the use of military force through processes of militarization, yet few have analyzed how new information and communication technologies impact on these processes. The essays... Read More about Celebrity leader personas and embodied militarism.

'Couture military' and a queer aesthetic curiosity: music video aesthetics, militarised fashion, and the embodied politics of stardom in Rihanna’s 'Hard' (2020)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (in press). 'Couture military' and a queer aesthetic curiosity: music video aesthetics, militarised fashion, and the embodied politics of stardom in Rihanna’s 'Hard'. Politik, 23(1), https://doi.org/10.7146/politik.v23i1.120308

Music video is an underappreciated type of audiovisual artefact in studies of the aesthetics of world politics, which typically privilege linear narrative storytelling and struggle to communicate how sonic and embodied practices also constitute world... Read More about 'Couture military' and a queer aesthetic curiosity: music video aesthetics, militarised fashion, and the embodied politics of stardom in Rihanna’s 'Hard'.

‘I am the voice of the past that will always be’: the Eurovision Song Contest as historical fiction (2019)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2019). ‘I am the voice of the past that will always be’: the Eurovision Song Contest as historical fiction. Journal of historical fictions, 2(2), 102-125

The Eurovision Song Contest has been called everything from ‘the Gay Olympics’ to ‘a monument to drivel’, but can it also be thought of as historical fiction – and what could that reveal about how narratives of national and European identity are reto... Read More about ‘I am the voice of the past that will always be’: the Eurovision Song Contest as historical fiction.

Language intermediaries and local agency: peacebuilding, translation/interpreting and political disempowerment in 'mature' post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina (2019)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2019). Language intermediaries and local agency: peacebuilding, translation/interpreting and political disempowerment in 'mature' post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina. Journal of War and Culture Studies, 12(3), 236-250. https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2019.1644413

The peace negotiations that ended the 1992–95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina established a constitutional system of ethnic power-sharing that satisfied its signatories (the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia) enough for war to cease and provided for... Read More about Language intermediaries and local agency: peacebuilding, translation/interpreting and political disempowerment in 'mature' post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina.

What female pop-folk celebrity in south-east Europe tells postsocialist feminist media studies about global formations of race (2019)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2020). What female pop-folk celebrity in south-east Europe tells postsocialist feminist media studies about global formations of race. Feminist Media Studies, 20(3), 341-360. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1599035

Feminist media studies of postsocialism are well practised at explaining how ideologies of gender and nation reinforce each other amid neoliberal capitalism on Europe’s semi-periphery. They extend this, by critiquing media marginalization of Roma, in... Read More about What female pop-folk celebrity in south-east Europe tells postsocialist feminist media studies about global formations of race.

Textual representation, class exploitation and the postcolonial: is the proletariat always in twilight? (2019)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2019). Textual representation, class exploitation and the postcolonial: is the proletariat always in twilight?. New perspectives : interdisciplinary journal of Central & East European politics and international relations, 27(1), 135-140. https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X1902700112

Commentary on Rade Zinaic, 'Twilight of the Proletariat: Reading Critical Balkanology as Liberal Ideology' (New Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Journal of Central and East European Politics 25:1 (2017), 19-54)

Postcoloniality without race? Racial exceptionalism and south-east European cultural studies (2018)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2018). Postcoloniality without race? Racial exceptionalism and south-east European cultural studies. Interventions : international journal of postcolonial studies, 20(6), 759-784. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2018.1492954

The black Dutch feminist Gloria Wekker, assembling past and present everyday expressions of racialized imagination which collectively undermine hegemonic beliefs that white Dutch society has no historic responsibility for racism, writes in her book W... Read More about Postcoloniality without race? Racial exceptionalism and south-east European cultural studies.

Football, history, and the nation in Southeastern Europe (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2016). Football, history, and the nation in Southeastern Europe. Nationalities Papers, 44(6), 857-859. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2016.1223026

Extract In October 2014, Serbia's European Championships qualifying match against Albania was abandoned after a drone flew onto the pitch in Belgrade with a banner showing Kosovo as part of a Greater Albania, provoking a fight between both teams and... Read More about Football, history, and the nation in Southeastern Europe.

Mapping the nexus of transitional justice and peacebuilding (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C., & Obradovic-Wochnik, J. (2016). Mapping the nexus of transitional justice and peacebuilding. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 10(3), 281-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2016.1199483

This paper explores the convergences and divergence between transitional justice and peace-building, by considering some of the recent developments in scholarship and practice. We examine the notion of ‘peace’ in transitional justice and the idea of... Read More about Mapping the nexus of transitional justice and peacebuilding.

Book review: Hromadžić, Azra. 2015. Citizens of an empty nation: youth and state-making in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 239 pp. Hb: £39.00. ISBN: 9780812247008 (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2016). Book review: Hromadžić, Azra. 2015. Citizens of an empty nation: youth and state-making in postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. 239 pp. Hb: £39.00. ISBN: 9780812247008. Social anthropology : the journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists = Anthropologie sociale, 24(2), 260-261. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12278

Writing about embodiment as an act of translation (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2016). Writing about embodiment as an act of translation. Critical military studies, 2(1-2), 120-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2016.1139314

Writing about embodiment is an act of compression: reducing the sensory complexity of someone else’s physical experience, or even one’s own, into written language that somebody else will understand through sight or sound. It is an act of abstraction,... Read More about Writing about embodiment as an act of translation.

The ‘Gay Olympics’? : the Eurovision Song Contest and the politics of LGBT/European belonging (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2017). The ‘Gay Olympics’? : the Eurovision Song Contest and the politics of LGBT/European belonging. European journal of international relations, 23(1), 97-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066116633278

The politics of gay and transgender visibility and representation at the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual televised popular music festival presented to viewers as a contest between European nations, show that processes of interest to Queer Internat... Read More about The ‘Gay Olympics’? : the Eurovision Song Contest and the politics of LGBT/European belonging.

Encounters with the military : toward an ethics of feminist critique? (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, C., Basham, V., Bulmer, S., Gray, H., & Hyde, A. (2016). Encounters with the military : toward an ethics of feminist critique?. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18(1), 140-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2015.1106102

This conversation developed from a panel titled “Interrogating the Militarized Masculine: Reflections on Research, Ethics and Access” held at the May 2013 International Feminist Journal of Politics conference at the University of Sussex, UK.

Introduction : gender and geopolitics in the Eurovision Song Contest (2015)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2015). Introduction : gender and geopolitics in the Eurovision Song Contest. Contemporary Southeastern Europe, 2(1), 74-93

From the vantage point of the early 1990s, when the end of the Cold War not only inspired the discourses of many Eurovision performances but created opportunities for the map of Eurovision participation itself to significantly expand in a short space... Read More about Introduction : gender and geopolitics in the Eurovision Song Contest.

'Ancient Volscian border dispute flares': representations of militarism, masculinity and the Balkans in Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus (2015)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2016). 'Ancient Volscian border dispute flares': representations of militarism, masculinity and the Balkans in Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18(3), 429-448. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2014.984486

Reception of the 2012 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, dealt with two particular themes: the homoerotic relationship between Fiennes' Coriolanus and the rebel leader Aufidius whose forces he eventua... Read More about 'Ancient Volscian border dispute flares': representations of militarism, masculinity and the Balkans in Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus.

Symphony of sirens: uses and problems of sound in teaching and learning about music and politics (2015)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2015). Symphony of sirens: uses and problems of sound in teaching and learning about music and politics. Radical history review, 2015(121), 197-208. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2800108

I have been teaching courses about music and politics since 2011, firstly as a part-time instructor replacing a faculty member during her research leave and later at a different institution as a faculty member myself. This piece considers some of the... Read More about Symphony of sirens: uses and problems of sound in teaching and learning about music and politics.

Beyond the island story? the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as public history (2014)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2015). Beyond the island story? the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as public history. Rethinking History, 19(3), 409-428. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642529.2014.909674

This paper evaluates the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as an exercise in public history. Public events have been widely identified within the study of nationalism as festivals that attempt to reinforce national identity and belong... Read More about Beyond the island story? the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as public history.

The Local Workforce of International Intervention in the Yugoslav Successor States: 'Precariat' or 'Projectariat'? Towards an Agenda for Future Research (2014)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2014). The Local Workforce of International Intervention in the Yugoslav Successor States: 'Precariat' or 'Projectariat'? Towards an Agenda for Future Research. International Peacekeeping, 21(1), 91-106. https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2014.899123

The international organizations involved in peacebuilding, democratization and peacekeeping in the Yugoslav successor states have employed thousands of locally recruited workers as project officers, language intermediaries and support staff. This mak... Read More about The Local Workforce of International Intervention in the Yugoslav Successor States: 'Precariat' or 'Projectariat'? Towards an Agenda for Future Research.

Critical pedagogy within the migration/security nexus: but who gets through the door? (2013)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2013). Critical pedagogy within the migration/security nexus: but who gets through the door?. Critical Studies on Security, 1(3), 370-372. https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2013.850237

This submission will reflect on how border control and visa regimes structure access to higher education by differentiating between potential students and funding recipients based on citizenship, and will suggest some implications for critical pedago... Read More about Critical pedagogy within the migration/security nexus: but who gets through the door?.

Music as a weapon of ethnopolitical violence and conflict: processes of ethnic separation during and after the break-up of Yugoslavia (2013)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2013). Music as a weapon of ethnopolitical violence and conflict: processes of ethnic separation during and after the break-up of Yugoslavia. Patterns of Prejudice, 47(4-5), 409-429. https://doi.org/10.1080/0031322x.2013.835914

Using illustrations from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and their aftermath, Baker argues that understanding popular music and public discourses about it can help to understand the dynamics of ethnopolitical conflict. Studies of war and conflict have... Read More about Music as a weapon of ethnopolitical violence and conflict: processes of ethnic separation during and after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Language, cultural space and meaning in the phenomenon of "Cro-dance" (2013)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2013). Language, cultural space and meaning in the phenomenon of "Cro-dance". Ethnologie française, 43(2), 313-324. https://doi.org/10.3917/ethn.132.0313

"Cro-dance" was a musical trend in 1990s Croatia which combined north-west European dance music with lyrics in Croatian and often English, unlike most Croatian popular music which used Croatian language only. This paper applies ideas from sociolingui... Read More about Language, cultural space and meaning in the phenomenon of "Cro-dance".

Prosperity without security: The precarity of interpreters in postsocialist, postconflict Bosnia-Herzegovina (2012)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2012). Prosperity without security: The precarity of interpreters in postsocialist, postconflict Bosnia-Herzegovina. Slavic Review, 71(4), 849-872. https://doi.org/10.5612/slavicreview.71.4.0849

This article uses life history interview data collected during a project on languages and peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina to consider, as an occupational group, people from former Yugoslavia who were employed as interpreters by foreign... Read More about Prosperity without security: The precarity of interpreters in postsocialist, postconflict Bosnia-Herzegovina.

When Bosnia was a Commonwealth country: British forces and their interpreters in Republika Srpska 1995-2007 (2012)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2012). When Bosnia was a Commonwealth country: British forces and their interpreters in Republika Srpska 1995-2007. History workshop journal : HWJ, 74(1), 131-155. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbs018

This paper discusses the working experiences of foreign military forces' employees in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) with reference to oral history interviews with fourteen people who were employed as language intermediaries by British forces in t... Read More about When Bosnia was a Commonwealth country: British forces and their interpreters in Republika Srpska 1995-2007.

Opening the black box: oral histories of how soldiers and civilians learned to translate and interpret during peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina (2012)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2012). Opening the black box: oral histories of how soldiers and civilians learned to translate and interpret during peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Oral History Forum d’histoire Orale, 32(Special Issue),

This paper uses 51 oral history interviews with former military personnel, language trainers and locally-recruited interpreters to explore how soldiers and civilians were educated into becoming translators and interpreters who worked in support of th... Read More about Opening the black box: oral histories of how soldiers and civilians learned to translate and interpret during peace support operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Tito's children? : educational resources, language learning and cultural capital in the life histories of interpreters working in Boznia-Herzegovina (2011)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2011). Tito's children? : educational resources, language learning and cultural capital in the life histories of interpreters working in Boznia-Herzegovina. Südosteuropa, 59(4), 478-502

The foreign military forces and international organisations that have operated in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) since 1992 recruited thousands of local people, often young students, to work as interpreters. Drawing on 31 life history interviews conduc... Read More about Tito's children? : educational resources, language learning and cultural capital in the life histories of interpreters working in Boznia-Herzegovina.

Have you ever been in Bosnia? British military travelers in the Balkans since 1992 (2011)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2011). Have you ever been in Bosnia? British military travelers in the Balkans since 1992. Journeys : the international journal of travel and travel writing, 12(1), 63 - 92. https://doi.org/10.3167/jys.2011.120104

Tens of thousands of British military personnel traveled in former Yugoslavia as peacekeepers between 1992 and 2007. The settlements where British forces established their military presence and supply chain were conceptually far from former Yugoslavi... Read More about Have you ever been in Bosnia? British military travelers in the Balkans since 1992.

"Death to fascism isn't in the catechism": Legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music after the fall of Yugoslavia (2010)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2010). "Death to fascism isn't in the catechism": Legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music after the fall of Yugoslavia. Narodna umjetnost: Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 47(1), 163-183

This paper discusses both textual and structural legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music since the collapse of socialism and Yugoslavia. Yugoslav socialism struggled to reconcile socialist consciousness and capitalist consumerism, forcing the... Read More about "Death to fascism isn't in the catechism": Legacies of socialism in Croatian popular music after the fall of Yugoslavia.

The care and feeding of linguists : the working environment of interpreters, translators, and linguists during peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina (2010)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2010). The care and feeding of linguists : the working environment of interpreters, translators, and linguists during peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina. War and Society, 29(2), 154-175. https://doi.org/10.1179/204243410X12674422128993

The history of war and peacekeeping has little to say about languages or the people who work with them, yet a closer inspection shows that contacts between different languages and the presence of an interpreter were a routine experience during the pe... Read More about The care and feeding of linguists : the working environment of interpreters, translators, and linguists during peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

It's not their job to soldier: distinguishing civilian and military in soldiers' and interpreters' accounts of peacekeeping in 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina (2010)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2010). It's not their job to soldier: distinguishing civilian and military in soldiers' and interpreters' accounts of peacekeeping in 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina. Journal of War and Culture Studies, 3(1), 137-150. https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcs.3.1.137_1

Peacekeeping operations throw the use of specialized military forces and the aim of accomplishing change in a civilian environment into contradiction. Organizations with cultures that facilitate warfighting have to reorient themselves towards achievi... Read More about It's not their job to soldier: distinguishing civilian and military in soldiers' and interpreters' accounts of peacekeeping in 1990s Bosnia-Herzegovina.

When Seve met Bregović: folklore, turbofolk and the boundaries of Croatian musical identity (2008)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2008). When Seve met Bregović: folklore, turbofolk and the boundaries of Croatian musical identity. Nationalities Papers, 36(4), 741-764. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905990802230514

Popular music in Croatia has consistently been a field where the boundaries of national cultural identity are set, contested and transgressed. The most contentious boundaries involve Serbian culture and the abstract "east", to which essentialized nat... Read More about When Seve met Bregović: folklore, turbofolk and the boundaries of Croatian musical identity.

Wild dances and dying wolves : simulation, essentialization, and national identity at the Eurovision Song Contest (2008)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2008). Wild dances and dying wolves : simulation, essentialization, and national identity at the Eurovision Song Contest. Popular Communication, 6(3), 173-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405700802198113

This paper examines Eurovision as a site for the public representation of the nation and explores the tendency towards simulation in such representations. The contest’s transnational audience and implication in commercial practices create pressures t... Read More about Wild dances and dying wolves : simulation, essentialization, and national identity at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The politics of performance : transnationalism and its limits in former Yugoslav popular music, 1999-2004 (2006)
Journal Article
Baker, C. (2006). The politics of performance : transnationalism and its limits in former Yugoslav popular music, 1999-2004. Ethnopolitics, 5(3), 275-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449050600911075

This paper examines transnational relations between the Yugoslav successor states from the point of view of popular music, and demonstrates how transnational musical figures (such as Djordje Balasevic, Momcilo Bajagic-Bajaga and Ceca Raznatovic) are... Read More about The politics of performance : transnationalism and its limits in former Yugoslav popular music, 1999-2004.