(In)visible presences: PitchWise Festival as a Space of Lesbian Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This chapter draws upon a range of empirical sources to examine a somewhat subdued, but consistent lesbian aspect of the Sarajevo-based PitchWise festival. We claim that this manifestation provides an insight into the ways in which lesbian identities, communities and activist endeavours are articulated in spite of the socially unfavourable circumstances marked by high levels of lesbophobia/homophobia. In the absence of a specifically lesbian activist organisation, such as those that exist in other countries of the region, PitchWise constitutes an ephemeral network of affective ties that promote lesbian belonging. More specifically, this festival performs a double function: on the one hand, it operates as an intimate—and perhaps also therapeutic—gathering for its women/lesbian participants and, on the other, acts as a sensitising agent that feminises the public sphere and visibilises lesbian existence within it. Both of these functions squarely locate lesbian liberation in the domain of affective, intersectionality-sensitive and regionally/transnationally-oriented feminist politics.