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Highways of Desire: Cross-Border Shopping in Former Yugoslavia, 1960s–1980s
... Consequently, the tourist and gasterbeiter (guest-worker)-both carefully governed by the state-became the paradigmatic figures of regime survival throughout the 1970s" (Hozic 2012: 616). Mikula's (2010) account shows that as Yugoslav citizens' living standards improved they began to travel abroad in large numbers for both recreation and shopping. Not only did shopping increase in scale and geographic spread but also the desire for foreign goods associated with a "western lifestyle, was encouraged and sustained through the continuing cultural influence of the Yugoslav guest workers living in the affluent Western European countries (Mikula 2010: 215)". ...
... According to Mikula (2010) its decline began in the early 1980s when the debt-stricken Yugoslav government increased its regulation and restriction on outflow of private money by introducing heavy deposit requirements for cross-border travel. The situation was further exacerbated by the war that led to the break-up of the Yugoslavia and the transition period opened up the once closed markets when newly independent states joined the global flows of capital and commodities (Mikula 2010: 220). ...
... For some purchases shopkeepers assisted Yugoslav shoppers in smuggling by under-pricing goods for instance Italian and Austrian shopkeepers who would offer to write two bills "one regular and one with a smaller amount, which was shown at the request of customs officer (Svab 2002: 71)." Another key player in the quest for avoiding paying hefty duties on imports were bus drivers who were always ready to be engaged as accomplishes particularly when passengers carried goods that exceeded the limits set by the state (Mikula 2010). ...
This research has not been previously accepted for any degree and is not being currently considered for any other degree at any other university. I Nedson Pophiwa declare that; (i) The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated, is my original work. (ii) This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. (iii) This thesis does not contain other persons' data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. (iv) This thesis does not contain other persons' writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a) their words have been rewritten but the general information attributed to them has been referenced; b) where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks, and referenced.
The 1960s were a golden age for Vjesnik, the largest publishing house in Yugoslavia, which invested in market research to launch new, successful issues, largely modeled on Western magazines. This paper explores the factors that enabled their emergence and argues they were the product of significant changes occurring in Yugoslav society in the 1960s. Building on the literature on press theory, the development of tourism and consumerism, and Western cultural influences in Yugoslavia, the changes are identified as the following: opening towards the West and changes in work time that enabled the rise of tourism and consumerism; a more liberal media policy, and the implementation of self-management that enabled different sources of media funding and the professionalization of journalism. The main goal is to examine how these changes spurred the development of Vjesnik in view of the launch and characteristics of its successful magazines in the 1960s and early 1970s.
This study investigates jeans use as well as the discursive practices that framed jeans-wearing in 1960s and 1970s socialist Yugoslavia. We adopt a practice theory approach that goes beyond the expressive capacity of jeans and focuses on their material and practical capacity as an epitome of cultural transformation. Practices discussed include embodied practices enabled by jeans and those that have jeans as their target, such as smuggling, dreaming, remaking, appreciation of authentic jeans and rejection of domestic substitutes, emotions about jeans, wearing jeans, and public narratives regarding jeans. We find that the significance of jeans-wearing was created by difficulty of access, the practice of semi-legal smuggling, contact with the West, and the “Italianness” of jeans. Jeans are conceptualized as a key point of connection between material and social transformation and a new structure of feeling, including the intimate experience of the body and its public presentation. We argue that the study of material artifacts as integral to certain practices helps us approach the larger systemic dimensions of (socialist) subjectivity and social transformation against the backdrop of the symbolic boundaries that divided East and West.
We describe the story of the railway missing links, particularly of the cross-border railway bridge in the Mura-Drava-Rails network. Eight railway lines formed this railway network from 1857 to 1924. We introduce our research with the historical case of design and innovation development of the semi-parabolic railway bridges. The central time frame of this paper is delimited to the post-second world war years to the present. With actor-network analysis, we describe the non-development and non-action in the two cross-border railway regional lines, each with its missing link. These two missing links in an estimated length of twelve railway kilometres prevent the network from being reformed. Additionally, we draw insights from urban studies, development studies, and machine theory. We followed the logic of the non-reconstruction of the railway bridge on the border of the former Yugoslavia with the Republic of Austria and the rationalisation of the passenger railway transport in the former country in 1968 on the one side. That is how we tried to understand also the commissioning of the cross-border road bridge between the two countries over the Mura river only a year later, in 1969, on the other side. We had to broaden our research perspective to all the railway border crossing od today's Slovenia with Austria, Hungary, and Italy. By mapping these railway border crossings, we were able to describe the strategic intent of the former country, which was to close the majority of the railway borders crossing-seven out of ten railway border crossings existing before the second world war-on its northern borders.
In our digital multi-option society, material, social and emotional needs are
satisfied to a significant extent through offers from the profit-oriented and highly
digitized market system. Social media emerges as a relatively new meta-level between
market and consumer regarding the complex factors influencing individual
consumption routines. Social media influencers are a central factor in these dynamics
as they serve as points of orientation for young people, who are regularly exposed to
influencer content on social media platforms and the values and ideologies they reflect
and reproduce. Young people’s consumption choices regarding nutrition, too, are
significantly influenced by their socialization on social media. For nutrition and
consumer education, this means that educators need a deeper understanding of the
impact of influencers’ media content on the nutritional and consumer behavior of
children and adolescents in order to grasp their key role as reference points and
symbolic power. The EKo-K.I.S.S. project, supported by the ‘Zukunftsfonds
Steiermark’, addresses this issue by developing media-didactic concepts for nutrition
and consumer education at schools and universities based on social science studies.
This paper contributes to this project by addressing the role of influencers and its
implications for the development of teaching competence in nutrition and consumer
education. Based on results of a quantitative survey amongst Styrian pupils and
educators, it shows the importance of this topic in education and points out ways of
integrating it in educational practice.
Through the lens of the representation of antifascist cultural heritage in former Yugoslavia, this interdisciplinary research project explores interpretations of antifascist cultural heritage sites as well as philosophical dilemmas, methodological challenges and the role of researchers’ introspection and self-reflection before, during and after the fieldwork. The chapter reflects on the changes in representations of antifascist cultural heritage sites in relation to the rising populism, both in the local and in the global socio-cultural space. To situate the fieldwork, the chapter presents theoretical grounding and the Yugoslav research context. Further, it presents the research findings situated through drawing on the notions of the context of Othering and the intersection of political activism and consumerism, as well as on Mark Fisher’s concept of nostalgia for the future. Finally, the chapter explores the role of the researchers in the representation, articulation and dissemination of the research findings. Through self-reflection and introspection, researchers may be able to thicken the description and add another layer of depth, enabling the understanding of the post-Yugoslav space in a more grounded and holistic way. Thus, the chapter calls for more transparency, reflection and introspection while doing research.
The Highway of Brotherhood and Unity - the motto of Yugoslav Communists – may help us decode the multiple layers of meaning interlocked in the built environment. Undoubtedly, construction of the Highway was organic to national cohesion. Built by brigades of young volunteers, the Highway allowed a one-day trip across Yugoslavia: an experiential approach of the common motherland by which “federalism” acquired a concrete dimension.
From an architect’s viewpoint, our contribution lays claim to a project-oriented approach to the Highway as a coherent built-up form, posing new technical problems, yet orienting urban change and opening up a whole range of narratives. To do that, we oscillate back and forth actual construction of the Highway - combining engineering, landscape design, urbanism and architecture - and its role as a catalyst of new collective perceptions and behavioural patterns. The Highway provided the centre of gravity for a far-reaching cross-cultural venture, a large-scale collective work of art.
In the field of consumption history there is growing interest in informal shopping practices, smuggling, and black-market activities in state socialist societies. Yet, little emphasis has been placed on how the foremost socialist workplace, the factory, became a crucial hub for smuggled goods and the extent to which workers played a role within it. This article explores local Budapest court cases from the beginning of the 1960s using the methodological insights of everyday history (Alltagsgeschichte). The cases show that white-collar workers (and in rare cases blue-collar workers) with a command of foreign languages frequently acted as middlemen in making transactions. This specific cultural capital put white-collar workers in a position to gain profit over and above their usual state salary, often contradicting wage hierarchies set by the state. At the same time, blue-collar workers embraced informal shopping possibilities at the factory in a climate of diversifying consumer expectations. This article examines how informal practices of selling and obtaining goods transformed relations among workers and created a new social hierarchy within working-class communities.
This chapter discusses how cross-border shopping impacts on actors whose livelihoods are premised on mobility and facilitating these activities across the Zimbabwe–South Africa border. It critically assesses how these actors blur the lines by facilitating all kinds of border crossings including border jumping, excise duty-busting and smuggling. The border markets theory is used to explain why Musina, the border town on the South African side of the Zimbabwe–South Africaborder, has experienced a retail boom.
This chapter investigates the role played by direct economic contact established with Italy in a process which led to the creation of a consumer society in Yugoslavia. This contribution is analyzed from two perspectives. First, the dramatic increase in the circulation of commodities, individuals and influences between the two Adriatic countries made joint ventures, cultural borrowings and spontaneous consumer practices possible, with Italy imposing itself as a relatively acceptable model of modernity. Second, the opening up of the border turned it into a resource for the neighboring areas, drawing on the disparities in living standards and a high level of complementarity between the two economies, with interdependent practices and mutual values emerging between the two countries.
Tina, the only Yugoslav girls’ magazine, was published during the first half of the 1970s. Tina’s first issues were designed according to contemporary Western models, but the goal of making profit to its publishing house was reached only after the magazine adapted to the specific Yugoslav context of the time. Its fashion and beauty pages are analysed and compared with Angela McRobbie’s (1978) insight into the British Jackie magazine. The similarities are shown, while the differences are put into a wider context of the Western, women’s and girls’ magazines. An ambiguity of messages published on these pages should be ascribed to social but also economic differences within the group of readers Tina targeted, but the prevailing set of advice shows how the latest fashion trends could be followed by creative interventions into what was at girls’ disposal.
This paper studies the transformative character of tourism and travel for a small, but multi-facetted example: Kosovo is a post-socialist transformation society and a post-war country in the process of nation building, a developing country within Europe and a transnational migration society. With quantitative data being unreliable in such contexts, an exemplary, biographical study allows an analysis of cross-system transformations and continuities. Based on narrative interviews, the paper studies travel patterns and narratives of an Albanian woman (anonymized here as Zana Bajrami) from socialist rural Yugoslavia in the 1970s to migratory Europe in the 2000s. After a general introduction, the paper considers public and private tourism in Yugoslavia first, before focusing on the impact of migration on tourist behavior. In trying to contextualize an individual example, it also explores the potential of a biographical approach in tourism research.
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