Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector (International Library of Historical Studies)

"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."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Figures 8 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 12 Key contributions 14 Chapter 1: Industrializing Yugoslavia: Market socialism and textile workers’ structure of feeling 32 Textile factories in the interwar era 33 ‘Factories to the workers’: From shock-work to self-management 37 Biking to the night shift: Women’s emancipation through labour 43 The factory as a socialist microcosm: Work, welfare and leisure 51 Balancing welfare and productivity: Paternalist management in socialism 57 Chapter 2: Being a seamstress in Yugoslav times: The ‘working mother’ gender contract 66 Re-conceptualizing the double burden in the Yugoslav context 67 From 3.00 am to 10.00 pm: The seamstresses’ endless working day 72 ‘What do you get from being a party member?’: On the ‘triple burden’ 78 Women ‘made of granite’: Workers’ portraits in the factory press 85 Seamstresses on screen: Workers’ representations in popular culture 92 Chapter 3: Labour after Yugoslavia: Post-socialism and deindustrialization in the textile sector 98 Post-socialist transformations in the textile sector 99 ‘Before it was different, it was easier’: Work across generations 106 ‘Only duties and no rights’: The subcontracting limbo 114 Trade unions in post-Yugoslav states 123 Chapter 4: Workers’ structure of feeling after deindustrialization: Loss, nostalgia and belonging 134 Deindustrialized landscapes across the post-Yugoslav space 135 Threads of belonging: Remembering the factory as a second home 143 Missing the future: The end of intergenerational solidarity 149 Feeling Yugoslav: Nostalgia for brotherhood and unity 157 Matters of gender and class: Critical Yugo-nostalgia 164 Chapter 5: Beyond nostalgia: Workers’ struggles for social justice and everyday resilience 172 Industrial workers’ struggles in the cultural, artistic and academic realm 174 Heads up: Textile workers’ strikes and collective organizing 180 Do it yourself: Everyday survival strategies 190 Conclusion 196 Working-class women and their structure of feeling 198 Post-Yugoslav textile production between the local and the global 201 Bibliography 206 Primary sources 206 Secondary sources 207 Online sources and press 219 Index 224 "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."-- Provided by publisher