Idemo si od put, idemo si, pevamo: sećanja seoskih žena na socijalizam u Srbiji
We’re Going on the Road, We’re Going and Singing: Peasant Women’s Memories of Socialism in Serbia

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the self-reflexive potential of experience in interpretations of Yugoslavia’s socialist past. It focuses on women of the “older generation” (born between 1914 and 1950) in the area of Niško Polje in southeastern Serbia, who actively participated in amateur vocal groups and performed at state-sponsored festivals in villages during the socialist period. Their stories highlight the complex and contradictory relationship between the personal, interpersonal, and political, and the interconnection between political and lived realities. In particular, the female singers perceived the socialist period as a time when they had achieved a certain level of social equality and experienced it as emancipatory. Employing the phenomenological approach and focusing on “subject-centered” ethnography, this study shows that individual memories are articulated in dynamics between personal experiences and the wider social and cultural environment. It does not try to essentialize relations of power and ideas of authority (both official and subaltern) but instead tries to look for memories that defend or dispute the very idea of authority. It argues for the potential of memories to express the polyvocal nature of social processes by challenging the concepts of consistency and fixity

• Details
• Contents