From self-management to postsocialism : industrial workers’ silenced experiences of dispossession in Slovenia

Vodopivec, Nina (author)

The article explores post-socialist political and economic transformations in Slovenia through textile workers’ experiences. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, a gap is revealed between dominant macroeconomic narratives and everyday experiences of being dispossessed. It is argued that self-management constituted a political economy rooted in collective labour, long-term sacrifice, and shared investment in socially owned property. Postsocialist restructuring dismantled the institutions and the material world people had built together. Deindustrialisation thereby functioned as structural violence, erasing class conflict from public discourse, and concealing the historical, social and affective dimensions of dispossession.

• Language: English
• Keywords: industrial labour, dispossession, moral economy, post-socialism, production workers, textile industry
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 09.01.2026
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 897-916
• Numbering: Letn. 62, št. 4
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-177952
• UDC: 323.3:338.45-051:330.341.426(497.4)
• ISSN on article: 0040-3598
• DOI: 10.51936/tip.62.4.897
• COBISS.SI-ID: 264664835
• Publication date in RUL: 14.01.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Teorija in praksa : revija za družbena vprašanja
• Shortened title: Teor. praksa
• Publisher: Fakulteta za družbene vede
• ISSN: 0040-3598
• COBISS.SI-ID: 763652

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Od samoupravljanja do postsocializma

Abstract

Članek raziskuje postsocialistične politične in ekonomske preobrazbe v Sloveniji skozi izkušnje tekstilnih delavk in delavcev. Na podlagi dolgoletnega etnografskega raziskovanja razkriva razkorak med prevladujočimi makroekonomskimi naracijami in vsakdanjimi izkušnjami razlaščanja. Poudarja, da je bilo samoupravljanje oblika politične ekonomije, utemeljene na kolektivnem delu, dolgoročnem odrekanju in skupnih vlaganjih v družbeno lastnino. Postsocialistična prestrukturiranja so razgradile institucije in materialni svet, ki so ga ljudje gradili skupaj. Deindustrializacijo gre zato obravnavati kot strukturno nasilje, ki je izbrisalo razredni konflikt iz javnega diskurza ter prikrilo zgodovinske, družbene in afektivne razsežnosti razlastitve.

• Keywords: industrijsko delavstvo, razlastitev, moralna ekonomija, postsocializem, proizvodni delavci, tekstilna industrija

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J6-50198
• Name: Etnografija tišin(e)

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0281
• Name: Politična zgodovina