Abstract
Widespread narratives on consumption mostly connect it with capitalism and (Western) modernity. That is the main reason why most of the scholarly and popular writings on the consumer culture and consumption practices after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the context of post-socialist transformation tend to paint the process as a discovery, wherein former socialist subjects learn how to consume in new, Western, individualistic, materialistic, and hedonistic ways. The intention of this chapter is to engage in a different perspective, keeping an eye on the development of consumer culture from its beginnings in the mid-1950s socialist Yugoslavia to post-socialist Serbia until the present. I will trace the most important movements and decisive moments affecting the changes and transformations of consumer culture in post-socialist period, arguing that consumer culture should be understood as a process, whose current manifestations always develop in longer time frames, and are embedded in local historical, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
It seems that the trope of the “discovery” tended to paint the experience of consumption for “post-socialist subjects” at the same time when, according to Don Slater, the latest “discovery” of consumption as the object of research in humanities and social sciences occurred (Slater 1997).
- 2.
Writings on consumption in socialism including former Yugoslavia abound after 2000. See Katherine Verdery 1996; Crowley, Reid (eds.) 2000; Reid 2002; Bartlett 2010; Crowley and Reid 2010. For the Yugoslav context: Marković 1996, Marković 2007; Švab 2002; Patterson 2003, Patterson 2011; Duda 2006, Duda 2010; Erdei 2006, Erdei 2012; Luthar 2006; Velimirović 2008; Grandits (ed.) 2010; Vučetić 2012; Malešević 2012; Dimitrijević 2016.
- 3.
For this, see particularly Yurchak 2006.
- 4.
For the reader unfamiliar with the particularities of historical context of socialist Yugoslavia, it has to be pointed that the historical path of Yugoslavia differed from the rest of the Eastern European countries. It was due to the fact that its leader and president Josip Broz Tito parted with Stalin in 1948, establishing closer relations with the West. In the decades that followed, Tito further developed a specific branch of Yugoslav socialism, which was considered “softer” than its “Soviet” counterpart. It resulted in improved standard of life, relative openness toward Western influences, consumer items and lifestyles, increased mobility and travelling abroad, and—in general—more liberal social and cultural atmosphere compared with other countries behind the “Iron Curtain.” Yugoslav branch of socialism was renowned for its specific political and social features. Policies of self-government were introduced in economy and nonalignment politics has led to the establishment of the Non-Alignment Movement during the 1950s. The founding Conference was held in Belgrade in 1961, in which Yugoslavia played a prominent role. The Non-Alignment Movement aimed to gather the newly independent countries of the third world, advocating a middle course for states in the developing world, trying to avoid the antagonisms and imperialistic legacies of both Western and Eastern Blocks during the Cold War. Therefore, Yugoslavia was often depicted and represented, both in academic and popular discourses, as a country that is “between” East and West, in many respects. This “in-betweenness” is considered to be an older historical legacy, but it has also found its materializations and cultural representations in the period of socialist rule. In regard to consumerism, consumer culture and practices of consumption, this gave way to the notions as “market socialism ,” “Coca-Cola socialism,” and “Yugoslav Dream,” which served to describe this peculiar historical experience.
- 5.
On shopping tourism , and particularly shopping excursions to Trieste, more in Velimirović 2008; Švab 2002; Luthar 2006. On the role of the guest workers, “gastarbajteri” (from German “Gastarbeiter”) for inflows of cash into Yugoslav economy and for introducing novel consumer items and consumer habits into society, Marković 2007; Duda 2010; Patterson 2011; Dimitrijević 2016, Bratić and Malešević 1982; Kovačević 1985.
- 6.
Here I primarily mean a potential for developing “vernacular cosmopolitanism” in a sense that Mica Nava 1998 and 2000 suggests for nineteenth-century England. Whether it was really achieved or not is open to debate, and Ivana Spasić already warned us not to go too far with this assumption, Spasić 2007: 51–70.
- 7.
See, for example, a critical review of a popular TV series “Theatre at Home” (“Pozorište u kući”) from the beginning of the 1970s. This series was the long-lasting TV series in Yugoslavia (aired through five seasons, from 1972 to 1985), and was characterized at the beginning as a routinely, “industrially” produced (and thus “inauthentic”) and contrasted to older popular TV shows, which were described as “authentic.” In words of an influential critic, while former TV shows have engaged in serious social critique and therefore grasped the “real life,” “Theatre at home,” with its “superficial humor,” missed that opportunity: “A quality show program should put forth important social commentary, valuable ethical concepts, generalizations about human destiny that will be of significance,” in Igor Mandić, “Obitelj je šou,” Vjesnik, 20.4.1974. (cf. Erdei 2017 (in print).
- 8.
For the majority of people socialized in the previous system that was confusing and hard to cope with. By the majority, society was seen as a generator of insecurity, fear, and uncertainty, contrary to its presumed role to bring the sense of order, predictability, and safety to its subjects. Renowned sociologist Silvano Bolčić wrote in 1994, in the midst of the “transitional times,” in an article that sounded as a personal lament as well as a sociological comment, that “withdrawing from the society” (in the meaning of stepping back from the social situations and arrangements we found unacceptable, into private sphere, I.E.) was one of the possible ways to handle the situation. “People have to disengage with the society in order to exist” (Bolčić 1994: 142).
- 9.
While in socialism the state had a decisive role in the production of discourses on happiness, in the world of (neoliberal) capitalism it is the individual who is held responsible for his/her own personal happiness, and the pursuit of happiness is directly connected with the world of consumable objects, goods, and services cf. Erdei 2004, 2006, 2012.
- 10.
http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id=329914 (accessed 24.7.2017).
- 11.
See more on this in Erdei 2007.
- 12.
Although consumers in Belgrade (and in the rest of Serbia) were also led by desire to retain “normality” in the arena of consumption practices, after the decade in which they were deprived of all the consumer places, objects, and activities they were previously used to.
- 13.
There was an institution of seasonal sales in socialism, though they were never on such scale as in capitalist markets, but in this case the new term was invented to indicate the new nature of the consumption process (“rasprodaje”, meaning “sales”, was replaced with “action”, which was sometimes dramatically underlined with an exclamation mark, “Akcija!”).
- 14.
- 15.
http://www.politika.rs/sr/clanak/352862/Za-hranu-dva-evra-dnevno (accessed 17.4.2017).
- 16.
http://www.alo.rs/jahte-od-30-000-evra-prodaju-se-kao-alva/98859 (accessed 17.4.2017).
- 17.
- 18.
In the state-sponsored “buy domestic” campaigns, the notion of domestic relates to the national state whose borders delineate the community of producers and consumers. Domestic thus comprehends whatever is produced within national borders, and consumption that takes place within same territory. That notion of domestic prevailed in the first decade of 2000s, while later, in contrast with that, the notion of domestic was more closely related to local, small-scale, autochthonous, deindustrialized, sustainable modes of production and consumption, particularly in the area of food growing.
- 19.
- 20.
On the phenomenon of monumentalization of pop-cultural heroes in post-2000 Serbia and Western Balkan, more in Mijić 2009.
- 21.
On the notion of consumption as an “erosion of culture”, see in Miller 1996, particularly section on the myths about consumption.
References
Antonijević, Dragana. 2013. Stranac ovde, stranac tamo. Antropološko istraživanje kulturnog identiteta gastarbajtera [Stranger Here, Stranger There: Anthropological Exploration of Cultural Identity of Migrant Workers]. Beograd: SGC.
Bartlett, Đurđa. 2010. Fashion East: The Spectre That Haunted Socialism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bauman, Zygmunt. 2001. Consuming Life. Journal of Consumer Culture: 9–29.
Berdahl, Daphne. 1999. Where the World Ended. Re-unification and Identity in the German Borderland. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bolčić, Silvano. 1994. Tegobe prelaska u preduzetničko društvo [Difficulties of Transition Toward an Enterpreneur Society]. Beograd: ISI FF.
———. 1995. Društvene promene i svakodnevni život: Srbija početkom devedesetih [Social Change and Everyday Life: Serbia at the Beginning of the 1990ies]. Beograd: ISI FF.
Bratić, Dobrila and Miroslava Malešević. 1982. Kuća kao statusni symbol [House as a Status Symbol]. In Etnološke sveske IV, 144–154. Beograd.
Čalić, Mari Zanin. 2013. Istorija Jugoslavije u 20. veku. Beograd: Kilo.
Clifford, James. 1988. The Pure Products Go Crazy. In The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/clifford.html. Accessed 23 July 2017.
Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff, eds. 2001. Millenial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Crowley, David, and Susan Reid, eds. 2000. Style and Socialism. Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe. Oxford, New York: Berg.
———, eds. 2010. Pleasures in Socialism. Leisure and Luxury in the Eastern Bloc. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Dajić, Ana. 2014. Estetika socijalističkog stana: analiza enterijera u jednoj stambenoj zgradi na Sajmu u Beogradu [Aesthetic of the Socialist Apartment: Case Study of a Building in Staro Sajmiste, Belgrade]. B.A. Thesis. Belgrade: School of Philosophy.
Dimitrijević, Branislav. 2016. Potrošeni socijalizam, kultura, konzumerizam i društvena imaginacija u socijalističkoj Jugoslaviji (1950–1974) [Consumed Socialism, Culture, Consumerism and Social Imagination in Socijalist Yugoslavia (1950–1974)]. Beograd: Fabrika knjiga.
Duda, Igor. 2006. U potrazi za blagostanjem [Quest for Abundance]. Zagreb: Srednja Europa.
———. 2010. Pronadjeno blagostanje [Abundance Found]. Zagreb: Srednja Europa.
Elias, Norbert. 1987. The Society of Individuals (Translated by Edmund Jephcott). In The Collected Works of Norbert Elias, ed. Robert van Krieken, vol. 10. Dublin: University College Dublin Press.
Erdei, Ildiko. 2004. “The Happy Child” as the Icon of Socialist Transformation: Yugoslavia’s Pioneer Organization. In Ideologies and National Identities – The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, ed. John Lampe and Mark Mazower, 154–179. Budapest, New York: CEU Press.
———. 2006. Odrastanje u poznom socijalizmu – od “pionira malenih” do “vojske potrošača” [Growing up in Late Socialism – From “Little Pioneers” to “Army of Consumers”]. In Devijacije i promašaji, etnografija domaćeg socijalizma, ed. Lada Čale Feldman and Ines Prica, 205–240. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
———. 2007. It Takes Two to Tango: Encounters of “East” and “West” in Everyday Economies in Postsocialist Serbia. In Places of Encounter, In Memoriam Borut Bruman, ed. Rajko Muršič and Jaka Repič, 151–168. Ljubljana: Zupanjčeva knjižnica.
———. 2011. “Rocky Made in Serbia”: globalne ikone i lokalni razvoj [“Rocky Made in Serbia”: Global Icons and Local Development]. In Horror, Porno, Ennui: kulturne prakse postsocijalizma, ed. Ines Prica and Tea Škokić, 273–298. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
———. 2012. Čekajući Ikeu, potrošačka kultura u postsocijalizmu i pre njega [Waiting for IKEA, Consumer Culture in Postsocialism and Before it]. Beograd: SCG.
———. 2014. IKEA in Serbia: Debates on Modernity, Culture and Democracy in the Pre-Accession Period. In Mirroring Europe, ed. Tanja Petrović, 114–134. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2015. Kombinirana Soba. In Made in YU, ed. Jernej Mlekuž and Tanja Petrović, 107–117. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU.
———.2016. Misty Gains from Outside: Economic Enterprises and Their Magic. Perspectives. Political Analysis and Comentary (2): 42–44.
———. 2017. Fragmenti jugoslovenske socijalističke modernosti 1970-ih u TV seriji “Pozorište u kući” [Fragments of Yugoslav Socialist Modernity During Seventies, Seen in TV Series “Theatre at Home”]. Etnoantroploški problemi (in print).
Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity. In Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Don Mills: Oxford University Press.
Jansen, Stef. 2014. On Not Moving Well Enough. Temporal Reasoning in Sarajevo Yearning for “Normal Lives”. Current Anthropology 55 (9): S74–S84.
———. 2015. Yearnings in the Meantime: “Normal Lives” and the State in a Sarajevo Apartment Complex. New York, Oxford: Berghahn.
Jansen, Stef, Čarna Brković, and Vanja Čelebičić, eds. 2017. Negotiating Social Relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Semiperipheral Entanglements. London: Routlegde.
Kovačević, Ivan. 1985. Socijalno-emfatička funkcija monumentalnih grobnica [Socio-Emphatetic Function of Monumental Burial Places], Etnološke sveske VI, 81–87. Beograd.
———. 2007. Antropologija tranzicije [Anthropology of Transition]. Beograd: SGC.
Lazić, Mladen, ed. 1994. Razaranje društva: Jugoslovensko društvo u krizi 90-ih [Devastation of Society: Yugoslav Society in Crisis of the 1990ies]. Beograd: Filip Višnjić.
Luthar, Breda. 1998. Ne tako visoka kultura: prepovedani užitki nakupovanja. [Not so High-Brow Culture: Guilty Pleasures of Consumption]. Časopis za kritiko znanosti 189 (XXVI): 117–130.
———. 2006. Remembering Socialism. On Desire, Consumption and Surveilance. Journal of Consumer Culture. 6 (2): 229–259.
Ljuboja, Gordana. 1994. Etnografija haosa - Beleška o dileru [Ethnography of Chaos – Note on a Dealer]. In Kulture u tranziciji, ed. Mirjana Prošić-Dvornić, 161–166. Beograd: Plato.
Malešević, Miroslava. 2012. Iskušenja socijalističkog raja – refleksije konzumerističkog društva u jugoslovenskom filmu 1960-ih [Temptations in Socialist Heaven – Reflections of Consumerist Society in Yugoslav Film in the 1960ies]. Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU 57 (2): 107–123.
Marković, J. Predrag. 1996. Beograd između Istoka i Zapada [Belgrade Between East and West]. Beograd: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika.
———. 2007. Trajnost i promena. Društvena istorija socijalističke i postsocijalističke svakodnevice [Continuity and Change. Social History of Everyday Life in Socialism and Postsocialism]. Beograd: Službeni glasnik.
Mijić, Emilija. 2009. Spomenici posvećeni ikonama popularne kulture na prostoru Zapadnog Balkana [Monuments Dedicated to Popular Culture Icons in Western Balkans]. Manuscript of the M.A. Thesis. Belgrade: Library of Department of Ethnology and Anthropology. School of Philosophy.
Miller, Daniel. 1994. Artifacts and the Meaning of Things. In Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. Tim Ingold. London: Routlegde.
———. 1995. Worlds Apart – Modernity Through the Prism of the Local. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 1996. Consumption Studies as a Transformation of Anthropology. In Acknowledging Consumption. A Review of New Studies, ed. Daniel Miller, 1–57. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 1998. A Theory of Shopping. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Nava, Mica. 1998. The Cosmopolitanism of Commerce and the Allure of Difference: Selfridges, the Russian Ballet and the Tango 1911–1914. International Journal of Cultural Studies 1 (2): 163–196.
Patterson, Patrick Hyder. 2003. Truth Half Told: Finding the Perfect Pitch for Advertising and Marketing in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950–1991. Enterprise and Society 4: 179–225.
Patterson, Patric Hyder. 2011. Bought and Sold. Living and Losing the Good life in Socialist Yugoslavia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Popović, M., et al. 1991. Srbija krajem osamdesetih: sociološko istraživanje društvenih nejednakosti i neusklađenosti [Serbia at the End of the Eighties: Sociological Exploration of Social Inequalities]. Beograd: ISI FF.
Prošić-Dvornić, Mirjana, ed. 1994. Kulture u tranziciji [Cultures in Transition]. Beograd: Plato.
Reid, Susan. 2002. Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union Under Khrushchev. Slavic Review 61 (2): 211–252.
Royek, Chris. 2004. The Consumerist Syndrome in Contemporary Society. An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman. J Consumer Cult 4 (3): 291–312.
Simić, Marina. 2009. “Exit to Europe”: State, Travel, Popular Music and “Normal Life” in a Serbian Town. Manuscript of Ph.D. Thesis (Courtesy of the author).
———. 2018. Consuming ‘Others’: Postsocialist Realties and Paradoxes of Appropriation in Postsocialist Serbia. this volume.
Slater, Don. 1997. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Spasić, Ivana. 2007. Smrt Bricea Tatona i uslovni kosmopolitizam socijalističke Jugoslavije [Death of Brice Taton and Provisional Cosmopolitanism of Socialist Yugoslavia]. In Horror, Porno, Ennui: kulturne prakse postsocijalizma, ed. Ines Prica and Tea Škokić, 51–70. Zagreb: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku.
Švab, Alenka. 2002. Consuming Western Image of Well-Being – Shopping Tourism in Socialist Slovenia. Cultural Studies 16 (1): 63–79.
Tsing, Lowenhaupt Anna. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Velimirović, Danijela. 2008. Aleksandar Joksimović, moda i identitet [Aleksandar Joksimović, Fashion and Identity]. Beograd: Utopija.
Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What was Socialism and What Comes Next? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vučetić, Radina. 2012. Koka kola socijalizam [Coca Cola Socialism]. In Službeni glasnik. Beograd.
Yurchak, Alexei. 2006. Everything was Forever Until it Was No more. In The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Erdei, I. (2018). Consumer Culture from Socialist Yugoslavia to Post-socialist Serbia: Movements and Moments. In: Krasteva-Blagoeva, E. (eds) Approaching Consumer Culture. International Series on Consumer Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00226-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00226-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00225-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00226-8
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)