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Consuming Ethnicity: Loss, Commodities, and Space in Macedonia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Rozita Dimova
Rozita Dimova*
Affiliation:
Humboldt University, Berlin
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Abstract

In this article, Rozita Dimova examines the rearticulation of class and ethnicity and how class distinctions produced by a free market and neoliberal economy in Macedonia have affected the interaction of Albanians and Macedonians in postsocialist Macedonia. Dimova highlights the ethnic dimensions of changing patterns of consumption by exploring the class mobility of one ethnic group (Albanians) and thus combines class, commodities, and consumption with notions of ethnicity. The process of articulating ethnicity and class is induced by the larger neoliberal context of the post-Cold War world in which the political economy of the "free" market and privatization inform local subjectivities. The domain of consumption, therefore, offers a place from which we can understand the complex interactions of multiple actors in Macedonia and see the various economic, performative, and symbolic significance of consumption in which the social mobility of the nouveaux riches Albanians has contributed to the loss of class privileges experienced by many ethnic Macedonians.

Type
Challenging Crossroads: Macedonia in Global Perspective
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , Winter 2010 , pp. 859 - 881
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2010

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References

The research for this article was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. I am greatly indebted to Victor A. Friedman, Keith Brown, Susan L. Woodward, Mark D. Steinberg, and Jane Collier for their valuable feedback.

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10. Fehervary's observations in Hungary rightly argue against drastic ruptures between the socialist and the postsocialist periods, while pointing out that during the socialist period, too, the construction of a socialist modern consumer equated western lifestyles and ways of living with “self-value and dignity” enabling “normal” family life and personhood otherwise impossible under the “abnormal” conditions of state socialism. This new standard of “middle-class fashioning” has remained central to the ongoing social, economic, and material transformation of the country. Ibid., 384.

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15. Although 1 am aware of the multiple definitions of class, in this analysis the term is used to indicate the purchasing power of the people involved in this research.

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I draw on recent literature in anthropology on gender transformations after 1991. For more, see Gal, Susan and Kligman, Gail, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative- Historical Essay (Princeton, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pine, Francis, “Retreat to the Household: Gendered Domains in Postsocialist Poland,” in Hann, , ed., Postsocialism. 1 Google Scholar have observed that the experience of loss among Albanians, which has affected notions of masculinity, was, ironically, partially generated by an NGO-led social movement promoting the improved integration of the Albanian ethnic minority into the larger society of post-1991 Macedonia. This NGOled movement sought to empower Albanians by opening up opportunities in the fields of education and politics, especially for women. As a result, however, the recent presence of young Albanian college-educated women has altered the cultural fabric of the traditional Albanian family and has generated dramatic conflicts between Albanians’ desire to maintain control over women and their sexuality, while at the same time, seeking to become “modern,” educated, and equal members of post-1991 Macedonia. To preserve or protect the supposed purity of Albanian ethnicity, control over female sexuality has become a widespread concern. For more, see Dimova, Rozita, “'Modern’ Masculinities: Ethnicity, Education, and Gender in Macedonia, Nationalities Papers 34, no. 3 (2006): 305–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. The fact that I was studying at an American university triggered negative reactions from many Macedonians and Serbs who were enraged by the American initiative to proceed with the bombardment; at the same time, though, it opened doors and facilitated my contact with many ethnic Albanians who believed that Americans had the correct perception of the “Albanian situation” in the Balkans.

18. Class mobility proved an initiator of major political, economic, and cultural changes that threatened the ruling classes and elites in the Balkans during Ottoman times. The Orthodox Christian merchant class in the Ottoman empire, for instance, with its access to economic capital and power, became one of the main destabilizing factors that eventually led to the weakening and fall of the empire. For more, see Stoianovic, Traian, Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe (Armonk, N.Y., 1994)Google Scholar; Hechter, Michael, “Group Formation and the Cultural Division of Labor,” American Journal ofSociology 84, no. 2 (September 1978): 293–318 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hechter, Michael, Principles of Croup Solidarity (Berkeley, 1987)Google Scholar.

19. In 1968 Albanian-speaking intellectuals in Yugoslavia voted to abandon the Gegbased (north Albanian) standard that had been in use since before World War II in favor of the Tosk-based (south Albanian) standard of Albanian developed there after that war. The official unification took place at the Orthographic Congress of 1972. Since that time, the slogan një gjuhë, një homb (one language, one nation) has been used repeatedly to emphasize transnational, ethnic Albanian unity. For more, see Friedman, Victor A., “Language Policy and Language Behavior in Macedonia: Background and Current Events,” in Frankel, Eran and Kramer, Christina, eds., Language Contact, Language Conflict (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

20. Moreover, Macedonians have been prevented by political history from maintaining cross-border ties with co-ethnics in other states, especially Greece and, until recently, Albania.

21. Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, Mass., 1984)Google Scholar.

22. For more on the nouveaux riche and the emergence of new elites in the Balkans, see Steven Sampson, “Beyond Transition: Rethinking Elite Configuration in the Balkans,“ in Harm, ed., Poslsocialism; and Sampson, Steven, “Weak States, Uncivil Societies and Thousands of NGOs: Western Democracy Export as Benevolent Colonialism in the Balkans,” in Tornquist-Plewa, Barbara and Resic, Sanimir, eds., The Balkans in Focus: Cultural Boundaries in Europe. (Lund, Sweden, 2003)Google Scholar.

23. All names are pseudonyms.

24. In his remarkable analysis of communal apartments during socialism, Ivan Szelenyi argues that communal apartments in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, although initially intended for workers, became appropriated by blue-collar professionals and the educated layers of socialist society. My experience in Kumanovo while doing fieldwork research revealed that although class played an important role in structuring living practices in the communal apartments in Kumanovo, the central area was (and still is) mixed with people from different classes, and nowadays especially, ethnic backgrounds. For more, see Szelenyi, Ivan, “Cities under Socialism and After,” in Andrusz, Gregory, Harloe, Michael, and Szelenyi, Ivan, eds., Cities after Socialism: Urban and Regional Change and Conflict in Post-Socialist Societies (Cambridge, Mass., 1996)Google Scholar.

25. For more on the town of Kumanovo and its surroundings, see Trajkovski, Petar, Staro Kumanovo: Luge, Obicai, Nastani (Kumanovo, 1997)Google Scholar; Trifunoski, Jovan, Kumanovska oblast; seoska naselja i stanovnistvo (Skopje, 1974)Google Scholar; Urosevic, Atanasie, Kumanovo (Skopje, 1949)Google Scholar.

26. As Szelenyi has argued for Hungary and Poland, the official policy in former Yugoslavia allowed for sharp residential distinctions, not only between classes of Macedonians, but also between Macedonians and Albanians. Szelenyi, “Cities under Socialism and After.“

27. For more on class differences during Yugoslavia, see Rusinow, Dennison, The Yugoslav Experiment, 1948-1974 (Berkeley, 1977)Google Scholar; Woodward, Susan L., Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia 1945-1990 (Princeton, 1995)Google Scholar; Djilas, Milovan, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System (1957; reprint, Orlando, Fla., 1987)Google Scholar; Patterson, “The New Class.“

28. Minderlak is a traditional Muslim low bench placed against the walls around a room and covered with pillows or cushions.

29. One of the ways to be economical was to prepare large quantities of zimnica or preserved food for the winter (zima in Macedonian means “winter“). Tanja told me that the preparation of food had always been a tradition in their family (as in many Macedonian households), though earlier had this not been related to economic problems. Her parents prepared ajvar (roasted and fried red peppers stored in jars), sour cabbage, eggplants, cauliflower, green tomatoes, and other vegetables. Tanja mentioned that her family, like many other households in Macedonia, has always been very supportive of natural, organic, and homemade food. Now, however, given the fear of starvation during the winter, preserving and canning food was turning into a real obsession. “We have to roast peppers, cut carrots, chop cauliflower for days. I am so sick and tired of this but it seems that for my parents this is so important. They see this as the only way to survive and eat well during the winter.“

30. Tanja did not have any plans for the summer vacation of 2000. She did not have any savings, and her parents could not help her with expenses. She has not taken a summer vacation in years. Tanja retains precious memories of the summers she spent over ten years ago in Turkey and on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, how wonderful it had been to travel across the former Yugoslavia. But Tanja often interrupted these happy recollections of earlier travels by voicing her views on Albanians, whom she blamed for what she described as the mess that now exists in former Yugoslavia. According to her, things turned bad after the demonstrations in Kosovo in 1981 — that was the real end of Yugoslavia. She blamed Albanians for the terrible economic situation—and for the “crisis” affecting young people—“because it is they [Albanians] who bring drugs and guns into the country.“

31. A survey conducted in 2001 by the Institute for Sociological and Political-Legal Issues in Skopje (Institut za Sociolosko i Politicko-pravni Raboti) disclosed that ethnic Albanians in western and northern Macedonia own private businesses and earn more than the employees in the public (state) or nongovernmental sector. This only corroborated the results of my own survey conducted during fieldwork research in Kumanovo.

32. Elsewhere I analyze the role of migration within Yugoslavia, which is central to understanding contemporary class transformation among Albanians and Macedonians. The Yugoslav government encouraged economic migrations in several different waves. The first wave, until the mid- 1960s, involved primarily skilled workers from Croatia and Serbia. In the period from 1965 until the early 1970s, the government staged an elaborate economic plan to assist the less-developed areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia, thus including large Albanian populations from rural areas. Dimova, Rozita, “Yugoslav Illusions: Migrations, Class and Ethnic Conflict in Macedonia,” Max Planck Working Paper Series, no. 94 (2007): 1–14 Google Scholar.

33. Similar processes took place in postwar Europe when impoverished people from southern European countries such as Greece, Portugal, and southern Italy migrated to northern Europe. The remittances of the migrants affected the living standards of the relatives who remained at home. For more on this, see Venturini, Alessandra, Postwar Migration Patterns in Southern Europe, 1950-2000: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge, Eng., 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At present, similar trends are taking place among migrants in the United States and western Europe who send remittances to the Caribbean, Africa, or Central and South America. For more, see Stoller, Paul, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City (Chicago, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Glick-Schiller, Nina and Fouron, Georges Eugene, Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home (Durham, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Boym, Svetlana, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1994)Google Scholar.

35. As in Russia, the komoda symbolizes an urban (bourgeois) commodity in Macedonia. The fact that in Lela's apartment they were made not from dark but from black wood symbolized modernity, a way to part from the classical style marked by dark-brown, wooden items. For more discussion on the symbolic role of the komoda and other furniture in the Soviet Union, see ibid., and Buchli, Victor, An Archeology of Socialism (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar.

36. Lela's Albanian neighbors, for example, had luxurious cars; her next-door Albanian neighbor drove a BMW and her upstairs neighbor drove an Opel Astra. Indeed, one of the main things Lela missed and craved was a car. After she had to sell her old Peugeot 205 a few years ago because she needed money to support her family, she could not afford a new car. Her salary from the hospital where she was a medical doctor was 18,000 Denari ($250) per month. Her ex-husband's monthly alimony was $50. She received some financial help from her mother who would buy and cook food for the children while Lela was at work, but nothing more. Lela, like Tanja, told me wonderful stories of the summer vacations she and Tanja had taken in the 1980s. She remembered the joy of having had a car at 20, the pleasure of shopping for new clothes in Greece or Belgrade, and the excitement of going skiing in Slovenia or Bulgaria. The commodities owned by her neighbors made Lela feel like an imperfect mother and a failure in her life. Sharing the building with Albanians who seemed richer and appeared to own more expensive commodities triggered feelings of loss, envy, and inadequacy, while at the same time giving her a reason to feel superior to her neighbors. Despite their economic wealth, she felt, these Albanians were and would remain backward and on a “lower level of civilization” than she (for more on this see Sampson, “Beyond Transition“). The tension between economic and symbolic capital became evident among Macedonians like Lela who had lost their earlier lifestyle. Lela drew on her memories of the past, which were framed in terms of a cosmopolitan lifestyle, travel, education, openness, and freedom. She viewed her rich Albanian neighbors as less civilized and as spiritually poor because “money cannot buy spirit.” Yet the fact that Albanians such as these have been able to consume and display expensive commodities like clothes, cars, mobile phones, jewelry, and so on has become a disturbing feature for many Macedonians, as indicated by Lela's frequent comments and her detailed descriptions of the items belonging to her Albanian neighbors.

37. Mersiha was bringing many new items into her future husband's house, such as a new washing machine, a new dishwasher, a new vacuum cleaner, hundreds of pieces of needlework (tablecloths, pillowcases, bed sheets, blankets, duvet covers), porcelain pots for the kitchen, several sets of crystal glasses in different shapes, tapestries, and a ceramic wall clock with Quranic scripture on it. (The personal wardrobe her father bought for her included 22 pairs of shoes in different colors with matching handbags, several dozen new dresses, and more.)

38. Because domestically manufactured furniture is significantly cheaper and therefore more affordable than furniture manufactured abroad, people are able to use the origin of a family's furniture as a basis for assessing their economic position. Mersiha's father, for example, told me several times that he could have bought the same type of furniture for one-third the price if it had been domestically manufactured. But since his daughter's furniture was from places like Saudi Arabia and Italy, it cost $8,000. He was doubly proud of the fact that he bought the furniture from a store in Kumanovo rather than from one in Skopje. Now everyone in town would know that he had bought the furniture that had been displayed in the window of the store for a long time—furniture that had figured in the dreams of many young couples. Local knowledge of who bought what enhanced the value of buying furniture from Kumanovo. Since Kumanovo is a relatively small town, gossip, rumors, and news circulate with amazing speed. Mersiha told me that, by the time the truck with the furniture arrived in front of Adnan's house, several of their friends had already arrived to see whether it was true that Mersiha had received the expensive furniture as her dowry. Most of the furniture from Mersiha's dowry was purchased in Kumanovo. Although Kumanovo's proximity to Skopje (20 miles) has inspired many Kumanovans to purchase big-ticket items in Skopje where they find a greater selection, the town of Kumanovo has emerged as a major center for furniture stores. At the time of my fieldwork, there were more than fifteen furniture stores. Before 1991 there were only a few state stores (držaxmi prodavnici), none of which offered the possibility of purchasing imported furniture. The styles were also limited. Since 1991, however, the stores have displayed an impressive variety of furniture. Owing to imports from Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other places, people have many choices when selecting furniture.

39. “There is no way that Albanians can learn to share the country and live in a civilized manner. Their mentality has been oppressed for too long,” Ana, 27 years, Kumanovo. “We will never become a member of the EU with the Albanians. They are so primitive and Europe knows that they don't change,” Kiril, 49 years, Kumanovo. “You give them a finger, and they want to take the whole arm, with a piece of your back too. There is no way that we can live peacefully with them [Albanians]. They might have changed the way they look and appear modern, but what is in their heads will never change,” Svetlana, 53 years, Skopje. “Their looks are so misleading—one could assume that they [Albanians] are part of a modern world. But there is no way they would ever change,” Riste, 31 years, Kumanovo.

40. I designate this fear as “phantasmatic” in a Lacanian sense—as nonrealistic and yet constitutive of reality.

41. Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space (Cambridge, Mass., 1991)Google Scholar.

42. Ibid.

43. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (1974; Berkeley, 1984).

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45. Andrusz, Gregory, Housing and Urban Development in the USSR (London, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buchli, Victor, An Archaeology of Socialism (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; Pittaway, Mark, “The Reproduction of Hierarchy: Skill, Working-Class Culture and the State in Early Socialist Hungary,“ fournal of Modern History 74, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 737–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. Bhabha, Homi, Nation and Narration (London, 1990)Google Scholar. To describe how ruling groups in former colonies “imitate” their colonizers, Bhabha used the concept of “social mimicry” to explain relationships among different segments of the colonized in colonial contexts. This concept can also help us understand the practices and rhetoric adopted by upwardly mobile ethnic Albanians in Macedonia who mimic the “civilized” and “modern“ qualifications formerly exclusively the characteristic of ethnic Macedonians.

47. For more extensive theoretical discussion on social proximity, see Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies (Chicago, 2002)Google Scholar; Zizek, Slavoj, For They Know Not What They Do (London, 1991)Google ScholarPubMed.