Should I Stay or Should I Go: Gendered Migrations and Musical Identity Among Female Jazz Musicians from the Balkans

This article explores the gendered migration and professional exclusion of female jazz instrumentalists from the Western Balkans to Western Europe. Drawing on ethnographic interviews, cultural policy analysis, and artistic practice-based research, it reveals how patriarchal norms, precarious institutional frameworks, and a lack of role models compel women to seek opportunities abroad. The study critically examines the masculinized structures of jazz education and performance within a semi-peripheral regional context. Focusing on the case studies of Nevena Pejčić and Lada Obradović, the article investigates how female musicians negotiate hyper-identity, navigate transnational networks, and assert professional agency in the face of structural inequality. Their trajectories illuminate the complex interplay between migration, gender, and artistic autonomy, offering insight into how exclusion is both reproduced and resisted within the evolving configuration of European jazz.