Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector

Description

Women's emancipation through productive labour was a key tenet of socialist politics in post-World War II Yugoslavia. Mass industrialisation under Tito led many young women to join traditionally 'feminised' sectors, and as a consequence the textile sector grew rapidly, fast becoming a gendered symbol of industrialisation, consumption and socialist modernity. By the 1980s Yugoslavia was one of the world's leading producers of textiles and garments. The break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, however, resulted in factory closures, bankruptcy and layoffs, forcing thousands of garment industry workers into precarious and often exploitative private-sector jobs. Drawing on more than 60 oral history interviews with former and current garment workers, as well as workplace periodicals and contemporary press material collected across Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia, Women and Industry in the Balkans charts the rise and fall of the Yugoslav textile sector, as well as the implications of this post-socialist transition, for the first time. In the process, the book explores broader questions about memories of socialism, lingering feelings of attachment to the socialist welfare system and the complexity of the post-socialist era. This is important reading for all scholars working on the history and politics of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, oral history, memory studies and gender studies. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Key contributions Chapter 1: Industrializing Yugoslavia: Market socialism and textile workers’ structure of feeling Textile factories in the interwar era ‘Factories to the workers’: From shock-work to self-management Biking to the night shift: Women’s emancipation through labour The factory as a socialist microcosm: Work, welfare and leisure Balancing welfare and productivity: Paternalist management in socialism Chapter 2: Being a seamstress in Yugoslav times: The ‘working mother’ gender contract Re-conceptualizing the double burden in the Yugoslav context From 3.00 am to 10.00 pm: The seamstresses’ endless working day ‘What do you get from being a party member?’: On the ‘triple burden’ Women ‘made of granite’: Workers’ portraits in the factory press Seamstresses on screen: Workers’ representations in popular culture Chapter 3: Labour after Yugoslavia: Post-socialism and deindustrialization in the textile sector Post-socialist transformations in the textile sector ‘Before it was different, it was easier’: Work across generations ‘Only duties and no rights’: The subcontracting limbo Trade unions in post-Yugoslav states Chapter 4: Workers’ structure of feeling after deindustrialization: Loss, nostalgia and belonging Deindustrialized landscapes across the post-Yugoslav space Threads of belonging: Remembering the factory as a second home Missing the future: The end of intergenerational solidarity Feeling Yugoslav: Nostalgia for brotherhood and unity Matters of gender and class: Critical Yugo-nostalgia Chapter 5: Beyond nostalgia: Workers’ struggles for social justice and everyday resilience Industrial workers’ struggles in the cultural, artistic and academic realm Heads up: Textile workers’ strikes and collective organizing Do it yourself: Everyday survival strategies Conclusion Working-class women and their structure of feeling Post-Yugoslav textile production between the local and the global Bibliography Primary sources Secondary sources Online sources and press Index