Deutsch Marks in the head, shovel in the hands and Yugoslavia in the heart : the Gastarbeiter return to Yugoslavia (1965-1991)

The temporary employment of Yugoslav citizens in Western countries was one of the most important migration phenomena in socialist Yugoslavia. In the early 1970s, one in every four Yugoslavs employed outside of agriculture and craft work was a "Gastarbeiter". Yet, while the study of the Yugoslav "Gastarbeiter" emigration has received much scholarly attention, the overall numbers and dynamics of "Gastarbeiter" return migration have remained under-researched. This book offers a major contribution to fill this gap. It draws on fresh political documents from the archives, the press, statistical data, contemporary sociological research, audio-visual materials, novels, and oral history interviews. It shows that the impact of the "Gastarbeiter" return migration on development policies, social change, and narratives of identity was much more extensive than what has been recognised so far. In particular, analysing changes in migration patterns and policies in the period 1965-1991, this book argues that the return and reintegration of "Gastarbeiter" generated political divisions and social tensions on a much larger scale than had their employment abroad. It maintains that, during the crisis period of the 1980s, the increase of return migration put strains on the domestic labour market, contributing to the crisis of the federal system, and the 'ethnicisation' of migration policies. Slavistik Cover 1 Title Pages 4 Table of Contents 6 Maps, Illustrations and figures 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 14 Research questions and thematic focuses 16 The contribution of this study to the academic debate on Gastarbeiter migration from Yugoslav regions 19 Development and transnationalism 29 Oil shocks, European integration and self-management 34 Gastarbeiter migration from and to socialist Yugoslavia: figures onparticipation by region and by social groups 35 Controversies about numbers and definitions of Yugoslav Gastarbeiter return 43 Serbia proper in focus 47 Primary sources 52 Structure 54 Part One: Return Migration and Strategies of Development 56 Chapter One: Market Reforms and Temporary Employment Abroad: The New Paradigm of Yugoslav Development 1965-1974 58 From post-war to Cold War: shifts in Yugoslav development strategies 58 The legalisation and spread of employment abroad: economic reforms andunemployment among peasant workers 61 The surge in temporary employment abroad: debates and criticism 64 The reforms of self-management in migration policies 66 Divergences between the central apparatus and local cadres 67 The republics’ struggle over remittances and the financing of thedevelopment of the underdeveloped regions 71 The halt on recruitment, the 1974 Constitution, and the domestic debate onnew priorities in migration policies 75 Chapter Two: The Establishment of International Cooperation on Return Migration and Development and the Adoption of the YugoslavReintegration Programme1974–1976 82 The OECD and the role of migration in international cooperation ondevelopment in the aftermath of the first oil shock 82 The OECD’s experimental project for the reintegration of migrant workersand the criticisms advanced by sending countries 86 Yugoslav relations with the EEC and Yugoslavia’s involvement in the OECD network on migration. The German and the Dutch agreement proposals 88 The Programme for the gradual return of Yugoslav workers temporarily employed abroad and their employment in the country 92 The legal framework of the reintegration programme: the 1976 Reform of Associated Labour 98 Chapter Three: The Implementation of the Yugoslav Reintegration Programme 1976-1979 100 The registration of Yugoslav migrant workers as jobseekers in Yugoslavia 100 The reform of private landownership and small-scale business: the models of Slovenia and Serbia proper 104 The ideological weakness of Yugoslav (re)integration: the peasant question in the context of the Gastarbeiter question 108 International cooperation on return migration: the second phase 111 Negotiations with the Netherlands and West Germany 113 The request for the recentralisation of development aid and the crisis of domestic cooperation on development 116 Chapter Four: The Second Oil Shock and the Change in European International Migration in the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s 1979-1985 121 The second oil shock, European integration, and the new policies towards labour migration in Western Europe 121 The impact of the second oil shock on the Yugoslav crisis. Regional perspectives on economic development and emigration towards Western Europe 126 Return migration and the rise of social tensions against ‘Southerners’ in the Slovenian labour market in the 1980s 131 Return migration and the ‘rural-urban symbiosis’ in Serbia proper 134 Chapter Five: From Yugoslav Working Class to Ethnic Diasporas: Ethnicity in Yugoslav and European Migration Policies 1985-1991 138 Migration and the Cold War equilibrium in Yugoslav relations with Western Europe in the second half of the 1980s 138 Ethnicity and European multiculturalism: the turning point of the second half of the 1980s 144 Slovenian Europeanness: ethnic identity and Slovenian transregional ties in neighbouring Italy and Austria 146 The return of the Americans: gathering the Serbian and Croat nations in lates ocialism 151 Summary 155 Part Two: Gastarbeiter Investments and Social Networks 162 Chapter Six: Gastarbeiter Employment and Migration Patterns. Making Sense of Changing Investment Patterns of Returning Migrants 163 The impact of migration on local development in socialist Yugoslavia: the migration-development nexus 163 Migrants’ investments in creating work places: the experiment of remittances factories 165 The rise and fall of the remittances factories: local (under)development in the 1960s and early 1970s 168 Shifts in investment patterns as a result of changes in international migration in the second half of the 1970s 170 Investments and social networks: Gastarbeiter’s relation with their (local) community 171 Houses and tractors: social prestige at the margins of the Yugoslav working class in the late 1970s and 1980s 174 Chapter Seven: The Gastarbeiter Family Network in Return Migration 180 Return migration and the social (im)mobility of rural families in the labour markets of Western Europe 180 The (re)integration and the schooling of children born to peasant Gastarbeiter 182 Welfare, ethnicity and tradition: the family network in return migration 189 The silent returns: female Gastarbeiter in family migration 195 Summary 201 Part Three: (Self)Representations of Return Migration 204 Chapter Eight: Cultural and Counter-Cultural Hegemonies at the Crossroads: Returnees between Transnational Identity and the Urban-Rural Divide 206 The good and valuable Yugoslavs employed abroad: the representations of Gastarbeiter in the printed press 212 From heroes to anti-heroes: the emigrants and their struggle for the homeland in short-story writing 215 The Gastarbeiter in feature and documentary films: from victims to perpetrators 218 From folk music to turbo folk: the Gastarbeiter and the cultural dimension of political dissent in Serbia in the late 1980s and 1990s 225 Gastarbeiter and the legacy of economic migration during socialism in the pop-culture of the former Yugoslav region 227 Chapter Nine: Memories of Returnees. Case Studies from (Post-)Socialist Serbia 234 (De)constructing return and reintegration patterns through oral sources: aqualitative analysis 234 The departure: reasons, employment status and recruitment patterns in the1970s and 1980s 235 Experience abroad and plans of return: socio-economic and civil status 237 The experience abroad: one gender, two perspectives 240 The construction and self-construction of the Gastarbeiter’s Yugoslav identity 242 The decision to return: motives and ways 244 The decision to return: times and places 246 Times of hope: patterns of investment in the 1980s 250 Returnees and the powers: the relation with (local) authorities 253 The socio-cultural capital of the returnees: networking and reintegration in the local community 256 The legacy of (return) migration in the ‘Gastarbeiter family’ and re-emigration patterns 259 Summary 262 Overall Summary 266 Conclusion 274 Return migration in socialist Yugoslavia: a brief chronology ofkey events 282 Bibliography 286