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- Convenors:
-
Sanja Potkonjak
(University of Zagreb)
Mislav Zitko (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb)
- Stream:
- History, politics and urban studies
- Location:
- A106
Short Abstract:
By placing the concept of social class on historical continuum between utopia and reality we seek to develop an analytical inquiry into the nature of post-socialism. The aim of the panel is to address categories upon which new explanation of the social world could arise.
Long Abstract:
The post-socialist period has been marked by a profound change of social and cultural landscape and, at the same time, by various attempts to find novel categories upon which new explanation and justification of the social world could arise. Consolidation of capitalist relation brought about a peculiar combination of disregard and contempt for the traditional concept of social class which, allegedly, has lost all its analytic potential and explanatory power. Caught between the rise of nationalist discourse and the proliferation of "postmodern "identities, social class was represented by both right-wing and (neo)liberal discourse as a superfluous decoration, at best. Thus, it became increasingly more difficult not just to analyze emergent capitalist varieties in Eastern Europe, but also to assess properly the ambivalent and puzzling class structure of the socialist period. By placing the concept of social class on a continuum between utopia and reality we seek to simultaneously tackle the uneasy questions of the socialist history and to develop a tool for analytically effective inquiry into the nature of post-socialism. We invite papers that will engage in discussing the purpose and scope of class, as well as papers that will address social and cultural issues of stratification and formation of class identity in any particular point in time. We especially welcome theoretical and empirical works which are set to combine insights of different social sciences (in an interdisciplinary manner) that will aim at bridging disparate empirical and conceptual landscapes of their respective disciplines.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Tea Skokic (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research) Sanja Potkonjak (University of Zagreb)
Paper short abstract:
This paper problematizes the relationship between the working and middle classes in the socialist context of consumer culture and state of welfare and the extinct middle class in the post-socialist context of economic crisis and economically defined but politically void „new“ working class.
Paper long abstract:
In socialist Yugoslavia, the idea that all particular social interests are essentially the class issue that will be automatically resolved by abolishing relations of inequality produced a meaningless, politically manipulative concept of the working class. However, the economic realization of the Yugoslav socialist model - a hybrid of planned and market economies - combined the capitalist idea of the state of welfare with the communist execution of social rights. The consumer culture in socialism, "searching for welfare", soon resolved the class issue by establishing a homogenous middle class as the nomen of its own social success, leaving the " working class" to be conveniently invoked only in ideological manifests of the governing nomenclature.
The discussion about the capitalist restoration of post-socialist period suppresses the issues of class relations and focuses on the lament over the extinct middle class and its high standard of living, while the unemployment rate in Croatia today is 16.6% and 36,000 of the employed do not receive their salary, the majority of whom are low- or middle-skilled workers, i.e., working class. This new relationship between the working and middle classes problematizes the socialist inheritance of transforming the working class into the middle class, the recent phenomenon of economically defined working class without political meaning, the post-socialist class inequality between the employed and the unemployed, and the emancipation of the worker as "the scorned subject" and his mobilization without being inevitably included in the middle-class political activism for "general good".
Tamara Nikolić Đerić (Ethnographic Museum of Istria)
Paper short abstract:
The paper traces the discrepancy between women workers in tobacco and fish processing industries at the beginning of 20 st century pointing to the fact that different industries generate separate identities within the general frame of the working class.
Paper long abstract:
From the mid 19th century, Rovinj, a small coastal town, saw the establishment of many industrial plants. The Tobacco Factory in Rovinj was opened in 1872 representing a significant turning point in the industrial and socio-cultural history of Rovinj. The only industry that was comparable in numbers was the fish processing factory. Both factories were employing mostly women but their statuses were drastically different. While Tabacheine, as interviewees state, were nicely dressed, enjoyed prestige and "smelled of tobacco", the workers of the Mirna fish factory earned wages which were much smaller and dependent on the fish catch and "reeked of fish" but what is crucial for this paper they were newcomers mostly of Croatian origin from various parts of Istria.
The paper traces the discrepancy between women workers in mentioned industries pointing to the fact that different industries generate separate identities and classes within the general frame of the working class.
Klaus Schriewer (Universidad de Murcia) Thomas Højrup (University of Copenhagen)
Paper short abstract:
Presentation and discussion of life-mode theory, a theoretical approach that rethinks hegelian and marxist concepts regarding state and classes in the context of current transformation in Europe.
Paper long abstract:
> Life-mode theory works with two interrelated ideas about class and state. On the one hand it deals with the hypothesis that social formation is characterized by a coexistence of different modes of production. In european societies it localizes different variants of capitalist production, simple commodity production, public production and related diverse life modes which are conceptualized in a new and innovative way (wage-earners, career professionals, investors, traditional capitalists, self-employed etc.). On the other hand, those societies are a part of a permanent struggle for recognition among states. Every state is obliged to organize the social and economic life of the population in it´s territory in a way that it produces the resources which are necessary to oblige other states to recognize it. Currently, life-mode researchers deal with the transformation of European societies in the context of the economic crisis and the reformulation of life-modes due to neoliberal policies.
Mislav Zitko (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb) Jelena Ostojić (Croatian Employment Service)
Paper short abstract:
The paper investigates the possible disparity between self-assessment of class location and socio-economic development in Croatia.
Paper long abstract:
Using the ISSP survey data this paper will investigate the relationship between class identity as understood by social actors in the course of self-evaluation and a set of socio-economic indicators through which the current state of economy and society can be obtained. Insofar as the social class can be taken as a key social marker of a capitalist society this paper represents a madnatory step to move beyond casual and anecdotal use of this theorethical notion which should enable us to get a more comprehensive understanding of post-socialist transition. By tracing the relationship between self-assessment and socio-economic development we hope to show how class operates on different social levels and interpret the effects it has on the representation of the conflict between capital and labor.