(Re) Interpreting Narratives and Discources of Welfare: A study of Jewish Women Welfare Activities in Sarajevo Inbetween Two World Wars

The emergence of a vibrant religious-based charity work in Bosnia was as much a by-product of economic hardship as of public-private divide. Complex intersections of industrialization, impoverishment and exclusion created an... [ view full abstract ]

The emergence of a vibrant religious-based charity work in Bosnia was as much a by-product of economic hardship as of public-private divide. Complex intersections of industrialization, impoverishment and exclusion created an environment conducive to flourishing of women‘s charity organizations within all four dominant religious denominations (Islamic, Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish) on a blueprint of philanthropic feminism characteristic of western-European countries of that time.
However, the mainstream historiography remained largely ignorant towards social phenomena beyond official military and political history. As a consequence, the activities of these organisations as a part of larger socio-cultural legacy are rather neglected and under-researched.
In order to bridge the existing knowledge gap and raise public consciousness, the purpose of the present study is to specifically explore the work of the Jewish women’s charity organizations at the crossroads of 19th and 20th century in Sarajevo from an interpretative, relational and gender-responsive perspective. The rationale for using constructivist epistemology and methods is tied to explanatory nature of the research itself. By applying qualitative content analysis on primary data sources (written reports of the selected women‘s charity organisations and related media (exclusively newspaper) representations), the study intend to make meaning of complex dynamics of humanitarian narratives surrounding the discourses of charity organizations in the given context by focusing on following aspects:
- Narratives of dominant power relations as regards to gender, class, confession, ethnicity and sexuality;
- Narratives of the “needy”: processes of discursive constructions of recipients, its categorization and taxonomy of their needs;
- Narratives of welfare ideology, and
- Potential places of resistance to dominant/mainstream narratives and discourses.

The abstract is submitted to be part of the history-gender-welfare workshop.
Key words: history, gender, charity, Jewish.