Class, Gender, and Industrial Structures of Feeling After Socialism. Post-Industrial Lives in the Post-Yugoslav Space

This chapter examines the class and gender implications of deindustrialization in the post-Yugoslav region, where the dissolution of state socialism coincided with the demise of industrial production in a variety of sectors employing both male and female workers. Reviewing some recent studies on deindustrialization and post-industrial lives in the post-Yugoslav space, I highlight workers’ narratives and identities with examples drawn from different industrial complexes, from the male-dominated steel, automotive, and shipyard industries to the feminized textile and fish canning industries. The first section describes the specificities of post-socialist transformations, particularly the ‘wild privatization’ that affected industrial complexes in post-Yugoslav states from the early 1990s onward, disempowering workers who had grown accustomed to the self-management system during the Cold War era. The second section discusses industrial workers’ structure of feeling and their attachment to factory life during state socialism, which results in narratives that emphasize belonging, longing, and nostalgia after deindustrialization. Finally, the last section addresses working-class femininities and masculinities and the ways in which workers of older generations coped with factory closures and unemployment, while younger workers faced the erosion of welfare rights and the intensification of working rhythms in private companies.