897 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 897 11 Nina VODOPIVEC* FROM SELF-MANAGEMENT TO POSTSOCIALISM: INDUSTRIAL WORKERS’ SILENCED EXPERIENCES OF DISPOSSESSION IN SLOVENIA** 1 Abstract. The article explores post-socialist political and economic trans - formations 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 dispos- sessed. 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 insti- tutions and the material world people had built together. Deindustrialisa- tion thereby functioned as structural violence, erasing class conflict from public discourse, and concealing the historical, social and affective dimen- sions of dispossession. Keywords: industrial labour, postsocialism, dispossession, moral eco- nomy. INTRODUCTION In this article, post-socialist industrial restructuring in Slovenia is explored by shifting the focus from macroeconomic indicators to industrial workers’ exper- iences, particularly in the textile sector. While macroeconomic measures indic- ated a successful transition (Mencinger 2001; Ferfila and Phillips 2010), produc- tion workers expressed material and symbolic impoverishment, the devaluation of both their labour and themselves. The narrative of a “successful transition” was not neutral. It erased social conflict, legitimised new power relations, in turn silencing the voices of workers, dismissing them as outdated and nostalgic, while framing their suffering as a necessary price of progress. 1 1 The research was enabled by financial support from ARSI for the project Ethnography of Silence(s) (J6-50198) and for the Political History Programme (P6-0281). * Nina Vodopivec, PhD, Research Associate, The Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, Slovenia, e-mail: nina.vodopivec@inz.si. ** Research article. DOI: 10.51936/tip.62.4.897 898 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 898 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA To challenge this framing, the article considers long-term ethnographic research (2002-present), with a focus on the closure of the Mura textile factory in 2009. It highlights emotional and social dimensions of economic transforma- tion and argues for an anthropological understanding of the economy as socially embedded, shaped by values, norms and social relations, and not just markets and institutions. Workers’ experiences of deindustrialisation reflect broader struggles over their value, recognition and belonging. Their claims of injustice are not backward-looking, and instead articulate ongoing social conflict and demands for the recognition of labour and structural dispossession. The article delves into how these experiences have been interpreted, silenced or delegitimised in public discourse. It is argued that workers’ loss should be understood as dispossession, a form of structural violence that has stripped them of their livelihoods, political agency, and the material foundations of their life; namely, what they managed to establish through collective labour in self-man- agement. While industry still employs nearly one-quarter of the workforce (Slovenska industrijska strategija 2021, 7), entire regions and sectors, notably the textile industry, have almost vanished. Even where it remains, workers describe a pro- found sense of decline, the erosion of working-class communities and severing of ties between factories and local areas. To understand these complex experiences, the article takes an emic meth- odological approach to deindustrialisation, grounded in the experiences of those affected. Analytically, however, deindustrialisation is not considered to be an endpoint. It is a contested and uneven process, influenced by global capital, cycles of investments and disinvestment, and shifting geographies of develop- ment (High et al. 2017; Smith 2008; Vaccaro et al. 2016). The article thereby contributes to anthropological and interdisciplinary debates on the affective and embodied dimensions of deindustrialisation and the structural violence of economic transformation (High 2021). It builds on post-socialist scholarship that critiques transition discourses as political and technocratic, and rooted in global circuits of power and capital (Burawoy and Verdery 1999; Kalb 2000; Podvršič 2023). Deindustrialisation studies that trace the long-term consequences of industrial decline on affected communities are also considered (Cowie and Heathcott 2003; Linkon 2018). This article does not refer to all industrial workers in Slovenia, nor claim that the textile sector is representative of the whole industrial sector. Differences shaped by age, gender, class, region and ethnicity are acknowledged, while focus is given to a shared “industrial structure of feeling” (Bonfiglioli 2019; Byrne 2002; Strangleman 2012), formed from socialist industrialisation and self-man- agement, which continues to impact workers’ perceptions of dignity, value and loss. To grasp these experiences, the article explores the historical moral eco- nomies impacted by this structure of feeling and the transformations brought about by postsocialism and neoliberalisation. 899 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 899 The first section of the article outlines the methodological approach adopted. The second section investigates dominant narratives which have silenced work - ers’ experiences. The third section presents a personal account of deindustrialisa- tion to stress its emotional and embodied dimensions. The fourth section turns to the historical experience of factory labour and the socialist moral economy. In the final section, dispossession is explored as structural violence. METHODOLOGY The article is based on long-term ethnographic and historical research, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and informal conversa- tions with textile workers. Workers’ subjective experiences are viewed as being socially situated and historically shaped. The material is not analysed through the decoding model since the analysis follows an ethnographic methodology, which emphasises interpretive and iterative engagement with the full body of material (interviews, life stories, fieldnotes). These are treated as situated accounts embed - ded both in each other and within broader historical, social and affective con- texts, rather than isolated texts. The article also draws on social memory studies (e.g., Connerton 1989; Portelli 1991) to look at how workers’ narratives – marked by the past, informed by the present, and oriented to imagined futures – are rela- tional and context-dependent. Accordingly, the analysis does not treat memor- ies as reflections of a fixed past or evidence of historical ‘truth’, but focuses on the meanings that emerge in contemporary contexts where anticipations of the future intersect with what Raymond Williams called “structures of feeling”, that is, historically specific modes of feeling a particular period. The analysis thus underscores contextualisation and reflexivity with a view to understand how workers navigate competing ideologies and make sense of their experiences. The aim is not to seek a single, unified account but to highlight the multilayeredness of workers’ narratives together with the tensions, ambiguities and contradictions that arise through lived experience. Most of the interlocutors were women given that they formed the majority of the textile workforce in production. However, men were also interviewed, includ- ing foremen, maintenance workers, managers, office workers, and retired, laid off, or still employed professionals. The research began in 2000 in Maribor, a city then strongly affected by industrial decline. The initial contact was unplanned. While working at the Technical Museum of Slovenia, the author was approached by the Tabor textile factory which was offering to donate some machinery. When visting the factory, the author was struck by the workers’ deep sense of belong- ing, which profoundly shaped the future direction of the research. Between 2000 and 2024, the author conducted interviews in various textile factories – some already closed (e.g., IBI, BPT, Svila, MTT, Mura, Tekstilana), some in the process of shutting down (e.g., Jutranjka, Delta (Ptuj)), and others still operating at the time of research (e.g., Novoteks and Induplati before their bankruptcy, Predilnica Litija). The author revisited several interlocutors over the 900 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 900 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA years. In addition to interviews, the research draws on minutes of workers’ coun- cil meetings (Dekorativna and Pletenina, Ljubljana), local and national newspa- pers, factory bulletins, magazines, and film footage from archives of the national broadcaster RTV. INDUSTRIAL WORKERS AND THE POLITICS OF POSTSOCIALISM The dominant macroeconomic and public discourse in Slovenia has long framed the postsocialist transition as a largely successful process defined by democratisation, privatisation, stabilisation, and limited foreign ownership. Rooted in modernisation theory, this perspective assumes a progressive, linear shift from socialism to liberal democracy and capitalism. Socialism is portrayed as repressive and inefficient, while the transition appears to be natural and neces- sary. The collapse of Yugoslavia is hence attributed to internal failure rather than global economic restructuring. The mentioned perspective has shaped public, policy and academic debates. Since this article draws primarily on research in history, sociology, and especially anthropology, the following remarks are limited to these fields. Early histori- ography focused on political democratisation, privatisation, and national sover- eignty, yet rarely questioned the implicit assumption of the transition paradigm that democratisation and market liberalisation were necessary, inevitable, and progressive breaks from socialism. Such a framing obscured the social and cul- tural dimensions of socialism and the complex experiences of dismantling it. More recent scholarship has broadened the picture by examining diverse actors, political multiplicity, and social conflict. Nevertheless, it has still not directly confronted the ideological assumptions of transition discourse, particularly regarding class and dispossession. Industrial sociology tends to prioritise labour policy, labour market particip- ation, and trade unions, while pushing aside those excluded from the new order. Anthropology and ethnology in Slovenia drew on international postsocialist studies and have made some interventions by challenging the dominant macro narrative and foregrounding everyday life 2 . Yet, attention to class and the polit- ical economy of labour has largely been sidelined in favour of identity, national- ism and migration. Since the late 1990s, international scholarship on postsocialism has regarded transition as a politico-economic project embedded in global capitalism and development paradigms, challenging its apparent neutrality. Rejecting linear notions of progress, it has highlighted ruptures, continuities, and unequal power relations (Burawoy and Verdery, 1999; Kalb 2000). This article aligns with such a critique by considering industrial workers and deindustrialisation. It shows how the transitional discourse in Slovenia based on a post-industrial paradigm 2 On the development of postsocialist studies in Slovenia, including the post-Yugoslav space, see Petrović 2015. 901 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 901 developed with an antisocialist orientation, casting industrial labour as back- ward, and legitimising new hierarchies. Following EU accession in 2004 and the Lisbon Strategy, neoliberal discourse has come to dominate development agendas, labour and social policy, and pub- lic debate, reinforcing earlier technocratic and depoliticised logics. Accentuating self-responsibility, flexibility, and entrepreneurship, these frameworks further obscure structural inequalities, shift risks over to individuals, and weaken col- lective agency. Vulnerability is reframed as a personal failure (Kovačič 2008; Leskošek 2011 3 ), reshaping institutional practice and workers’ self-perception. Despite these powerful discourses that individualise the effects of economic transformation and the social and emotional consequences of deindustrialisa- tion, the topic remains largely underexplored. Macroeconomic explanations stress the loss of Yugoslav markets, restructuring failures, and global com- petition, while neglecting the lived effects on workers and their communities. Deindustrialisation is framed as natural and complete. This view draws on the post-industrial paradigm, which assumes an unprob- lematic shift from manufacturing to a knowledge economy. Like transition dis- course, it presumes a total break with the past and the beginning of something entirely new, obscuring persistent inequalities and the afterlives of industrial labour, traces that endure in memory, infrastructure, and social ties (Vaccaro et al. 2022). The paradigm also overlooks that manufacturing has not disappeared, but transformed. In Slovenia, the post-industrial paradigm became institutionalised during the late 1980s and early 1990s, tied to market reforms and a clear antisocial- ist stance. Industrial labour and the working class became associated with the discredited socialist past, while managerial and entrepreneurial knowledge was promoted as modern and future-oriented. This shift reconfigured social hier - archies, valorising cognitive and managerial work and devaluing manual and industrial labour, in turn reinforcing new exclusions. These frameworks obscured the ongoing social consequences held by factory closures and industrial decline. For the workers interviewed in this study, dein- dustrialisation was not a past event, but an ongoing disruption. Linkon’s (2018) metaphor of deindustrialisation as “radioactive waste” highlights this aspect by showing that even when workers do find new jobs the absence of the factory con- tinues to shape their values and futures. Walley’s (2012) account of her father’s layoff captures the intergenerational trauma and persistent search for meaning in the wake of industrial collapse. These works show that industrial work was more than an economic transaction and instead embodied dignity, skill and belonging. Its loss led to material insecurity along with identity crises and social disintegration. 3 On orientation to self-activation policies in the labour market, see Svetlik and Batić 2001. 902 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 902 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA Williams’ concept of structure of feeling explains how industrial worlds shape subjectivities even after their material base has started to erode. Williams emphasised lived meanings and values that are felt and endure beyond the political economic changes, forming a generational and collective experience (Williams 1997, 249–56). This concept is employed in deindustrialisation studies (Byrne 2002: Bonfiglioli 2019; Strangleman 2012) and provides a lens for under- standing how workers interpret ongoing changes through attachments to indus- trial social and moral worlds. Such a framework helps to interpret three prominent themes emerging from the interviews in this study: a strong sense of belonging, deep investment in labour, and feelings of betrayal and dispossession. Often dismissed as nostalgia in public discourse, these feelings represent a shared experience with roots in the self-management and ongoing post-socialist transformations. The following chapters show how such entanglements of past and present disrupt dominant transition narratives that depict the shift from socialism to capitalism as lin- ear and unidirectional. Yet, the public discourse has largely ignored these lived experiences. Since the 1990s, the media’s coverage has focused on the financial aspect, business, profits, and managerial expertise at the expense of workers’ voices. With such a focus, strikes became cast more as a problem than political acts and striking workers not as agents but as burdens of transition or its passive victims. Even when they were acknowledged, their criticisms were reduced to nostalgic grievances, sentimental expressions of the ‘good old days’ of the bygone socialist era, and not as grounded critiques of structural injustice. Within this framing, workers’ struggles became seen as collateral damage in the narrative of progress that viewed factory closures as inevitable steps toward modernisation. Portrayals like that described above were not neutral. They were ideological, shaping public perceptions, and workers’ self-image. Structural inequalities were recoded as classed narratives which portrayed industrial labour as backward and inflexible (Munt 2000; Skeggs 1997). In postsocialist Slovenia, this devaluation was intensified by associating industrial work with socialism, excluding workers from the new imaginaries of progress. These processes had a profound impact on already damaged communities and further eroded workers’ social- and self-re- spect. Seen as remnants of a past era, industrial workers were subjected to retrain- ing programmes intended to ‘modernise’ them. The author witnessed one such course in the production of the Litija Spinning factory in 2004 while conduct- ing the fieldwork. Another programme was described to the author following the collapse of Mura in 2009 (Vodopivec 2021, 161–63). Only a few useful skills were offered by these programmes. Their primary goal was to reshape workers’ subjectivities, often in infantilising and humiliating ways. They resembled dis- possession masked as rehabilitation rather than empowerment, illustrating how neoliberal policies had sidelined workers’ voices and were actively seeking to remake their identities. 903 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 903 The author’s reading of media and public discourse treats nostalgic depic- tions of workers’ emotions as political interventions. Following Dominic Boyer’s critique (2010), in this article postsocialist nostalgia is approached as a political symptom. While Boyer focuses on East–West dynamics showing how Western discourses framed Eastern European nostalgia as sentimental, regressive, and merely a coping mechanism, similar logics structure Slovenian public discourse. Here, nostalgia attributed to working-class subjects acts as a form of economic and cultural violence. It silences critique by recasting resistance to deindustri- alisation and systemic injustice as backwardness or emotional overreaction. In this way, nostalgia becomes a political tool that legitimises entrepreneurial transformation and reinforces the marginalisation of industrial workers. Anthropology plays a key role in countering such narratives by focusing on experiences. As the section below shows, deindustrialisation is not a closed chapter. It is an ongoing, contested and emotionally charged process. ETHNOGRAPHY OF RESTRUCTURING Silva Mlinarič worked for 25 years as a seamstress in Mura’s menswear department in Ljutomer. When we met in 2011, 2 years after the company went into bankruptcy, she described how feelings of being exhausted had long pre- ceded the closure, chaotic reorganisations, increasing quotas, unbearable heat, noise, and tension. “We were like chickens under light bulbs” 4 , she said, recalling the 42-degree heat in production department. As pressure mounted, relations soured, and conflicts spread beyond the shop floor into the community in which most workers were living. Silva refused to stay silent. She confronted supervisors over the unsafe condi- tions, but was ignored. As her fatigue grew, she sought medical help, where she met other Mura workers struggling with similar problems. They, too, were grap- pling with the outcomes of changes typically described as work intensification. A psychologist from Ormož Hospital told me in an interview in 2011 that she had been treating Mura workers individually since the 1990s. These were, how- ever, not isolated crises, but embodied expressions of a structural breakdown; devaluation, disrespect, and fear of the future. Yet, they were treated by politics, managers, the broader public, society at large, within the neoliberal discourse as personal failures, not as collective consequences of systemic transformation. Silva developed carpal tunnel syndrome – a seamstress injury shaped by repetitive labour and the intensified, reorganised work during the factory’s final years. Her pain was dismissed by factory management and the occupa- tional doctor 5 . She paid a private specialist who immediately performed surgery. During medical leave, she was surveilled by detectives hired by the factory. Upon 4 Interview, Murska Sobota, June 2011. All interviewees provided informed consent. Several chose not to be anonymised, and their requests to use their real names have been respected. 5 Despite binding EU regulations, Slovenia lacked a legal framework for occupational and work-re- lated diseases other than asbestosis, a legislative void that persisted until 2023 (UL RS 25, 24.2.2023). 904 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 904 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA returning to work, the conditions remained unchanged, and her injury eventu- ally affected her entire left side, making her increasingly unemployable. Nonetheless, the dominant discourse shaped by the self-responsibility paradigm insisted it was up to her to ‘reinvent herself’. Within neoliberal logic, the body is expected to be self-reliant, mobile, and flexible. This logic obscures the structural contradictions between labour and health. Workers like Silva were stripped of employment but also of their body and capacity to work, deindustri- alised in the most literal sense (compare Storey 2017, 60–62). After the bankruptcy, Silva, then 42, returned to school and excelled. Her confidence was renewed and she felt a sense of belonging to the new ‘know- ledge-based’ society. She dreamed of studying gerontology, although age (she was considered too old for the labour market), chronic pain, and lack of resources prevented that. Becoming ‘just a housewife’ was hard to accept. For women of her generation, paid work meant independence. Its loss signalled a return to being dependent on husbands, parents, or the state, which was experienced as going backwards. By the time Mura closed in 2009, the workers were already depleted fin- ancially, physically and emotionally. Wages had long been low, savings min- imal, credit inaccessible. The closure, while having its own specificities, echoed broader patterns of factory shutdowns. Notwithstanding years of accumulated strain, the final collapse came as a traumatic shock. Workers described paralysis, fear, shame and humiliation. They felt injustice and dispossession, but public discourse urged them to forget and “move on” (Vodopivec 2021, 70). The closure was publicly framed as a tragedy, yet the outrage focused on the symbolic loss of Mura as a national brand, not the workers. The official economic discourse saw Mura as socialist relic unfit for a modern, competitive economy (Tajnikar and Pušnik 2009, 12, 13). The rhetoric of inevitability depoliticised its closure, framing it as a rational step toward progress. Still, for workers like Silva, it was a violent rupture. Most lost their jobs, while a ‘healthy core’ of 600 was retained, implicitly suggesting the rest were expend- able. The term “healthy core” is a corporate metaphor that treats workers like an infection to be removed for the sake of the organisation’s survival (Stein 1998, 8) 6 . The restructuring fragmented the workforce; some received severance, oth- ers were rehired on precarious contracts, and many were discarded. This divi- sion fostered competition and conflict, eroded solidarity, deepened feelings of isolation and loneliness. Even though many workers blamed Mura’s management, the state, a part owner of the company, was seen as the ultimate betrayer. While the state plays a crucial role in all my interlocutors’ narratives across Slovenia, with Mura its betrayal was far more severe. It not only failed to protect workers’ rights, but its active involvement in the bankruptcy raised suspicions of intentional 6 For similar observations, see Vogrinc (2009) and Močnik (2010). 905 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 905 negligence. Moreover, some workers were transferred to a newly established company without any capital just before the bankruptcy, without an explanation or clear criteria for their selection, which caused a financial loss. The author’s interlocutor, entitled to €14,000 in severance pay, never received it. Like about 1,900 others, she filed a lawsuit, only to learn there was no legal basis for their claims. In effect, the workers had paid for their own dispossession because the state not merely failed to protect their rights but had a significant role in their exploitation (Vodopivec 2021, 213–40). These were not just economic losses as they also amounted to deep political experiences. Still, they were individualised and stripped of collective meaning. Public discourse, and much of academia failed to take them seriously. The privat - isation of suffering reflected broader patterns of depoliticisation in Slovenian postsocialism. Even when suspicions of fraud emerged, they were quickly overshadowed by the celebratory discourse of economic regeneration, one that focused on firms and not the people left behind. Prime Minister Borut Pahor praised Mura’s “healthy core” as a phoenix 7 rising from the ashes (Gerenčer 2010, 1). Clarke’s study of Moulinex (2015) shows the importance of public interpret- ations of factory closure for working-class communities. In France, workers and their local communities, including academics, activists and lawyers, challenged the dominant narrative of the closure. The political mobilisation led to secur- ing compensation and providing an alternative interpretation. In contrast, such efforts in Slovenia were fragmented. Competing interpretations of factory shut- downs nonetheless remain a persistent, latent problem that continues to divide former industrial communities. A study by the Clinical Institute for Occupational Health confirmed long-last- ing physical and psychological harm (Draksler et al. 2018) caused by Mura’s restructuring, warning of cumulative effects and structural dangers. In any case, these findings triggered no policy changes. The economic need for restructur - ing continues to justify mistreatment while social suffering is individualised and depoliticised. Workers’ emotional experiences are typically dismissed as excess- ive sensitivity or attributed to their class, gender and age, and not recognised as expressions of structural violence. There was little interest in exploring the deeper causes of Mura workers’ experiences, leaving the structural conditions of their suffering invisible and their emotional pain misunderstood. This points to the need to study the histor- ical context behind these experiences. 7 The phoenix metaphor originates from corporate language and in Slovenia was promoted by Maks Tajnikar (2000, 264–66). 906 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 906 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA SELF-MANAGEMENT AND THE MORAL ECONOMY To fully consider the emotional and social dimensions of deindustrialisation, we must consider the historical role of factory work in shaping workers’ identit- ies and their sense of belonging. The analysis builds on ethnographic attention to how self-management was lived and understood in everyday practice. The phrase “our factory” deserves closer attention as it does not directly reflect ownership in the sense of private property regimes. It refers to a deep sense of belonging rooted in experiences of self-management, influenced by commitment, solidar- ity, collective effort, and shared sacrifice. As the Litija Spinning factory’s former director noted 8 , this sense of belonging did not come into being by itself; it had to be developed and nurtured through meetings, bulletins, celebrations, and wel- fare arrangements. Recent anthropological debates have revisited the concept of moral eco- nomy to stress how political and economic relations are always embedded in social expectations, obligations, and shared understandings of legitimacy and deservingness (Palomera and Vetta 2016; Yalcin-Heckmann 2022). Rather than treating moral economy as an ideal grounded in justice, fairness or morality, these approaches emphasise the way it emerges from historically situated eco- nomic practices, institutional contexts, and experiences. This article draws on the concept to show that the moral economy in socialist Yugoslavia was shaped by practices and ideologies of labour and self-management, becoming central to how workers understood their role in the factory and society. These frameworks were not merely ideological or abstract, but lived and negotiated in everyday practices, impacting workers’ understandings of what was legitimate, deserved, and socially valuable. The factory was not just a workplace. It was a moral and social world where ideas of recognition and social value were actively negotiated in everyday life. To grasp why the loss of work and recognition was experienced so deeply, we must look at historically rooted expectations of social contribution, legit- imacy and reciprocity. Although the interlocutors rarely mentioned self-man- agement explicitly, they spoke of “having a voice”, “having a place” and “being considered”, reflecting ideas promoted by the system, particularly as regards “participation” and the “criteria of labour investment” on which social property was based. These expressions reveal an experience of participation shaped by formal structures, such as workers’ councils, and everyday practices of collect- ive effort, solidarity, and mutual dependence. While sociological studies at the time (Arzenšek 1981; Rus 1985; Rus and Adam 1986) noted gaps between worker power and director control, they also showed that workers valued transparency and fairness more than decision-making. The experience of self-management was, apart from the institutional design, also influenced by the expectations that arose from lived relations of labour, effort, and long-lasting norms. 8 Interview, Litija, September 2003. 907 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 907 Participation took many forms. Factory bulletins, workers’ council records, and interviews show that despite differences concerning class, regions, gender and age, workers generally used the workers’ councils to raise concerns about their immediate work and living conditions. Numerous grievances in these reports reveal tensions in socialist production, at the same time as showing that workers’ councils served as mechanisms for articulating and addressing work- place problems (Vodopivec 2025a). In practice, directors relied heavily on workers, especially in labour-intensive sectors like textile, which faced material shortages. The dedication of workers in these situations, which demanded hard work and overtime, fostered a factory collective. Workers in self-management often identified more strongly with their factory, calling themselves “Muraši” (for a similar case, see Musić 2021, 81), than with class, an identity that extended beyond factory walls, deeply shaping local life and economic well-being. Factory labour was widely seen as the foundation of local development. Factory life involved navigating various forms of discipline from assembly lines and strict hierarchies to self-management practices, alongside generational, class, and gender expectations, all while balancing family and personal aspir- ations. Making up the majority in textile production, women were placed in dependent positions, although they could negotiate authority through institu- tional mechanisms. These challenges were often unwelcome, particularly when they disrupted group dynamics, mutual reliance, and the ideal of a hard-work- ing woman. Interviews show that production work was far from alienating; it involved tacit knowledge, deep engagement, and embodied investment, creating value through the practice of work. For many, self-management was an abstract concept, yet their interviews reveal meanings impacted by the ideology and lived realities of work. Workers understood their labour as vital for the factory as well as for wider social and economic life since factories funded welfare, housing, and social services. These issues were frequently discussed at various meetings, making industrial labour a cornerstone of daily life, preserving its value even as knowledge-based work became more prominent after the 1970s. Looking beyond formal structures reveals how self-management produced a moral economy grounded in lived norms and entitlements. This moral economy was shaped by the increasing autonomy of factories from the 1960s onward, and articulated and negotiated through work and discus- sions in workers’ councils. While choices over wages and investments were con- strained, these ongoing discussions and everyday rituals embedded self-man- agement in experience. These interactions influenced the sense of obligation and entitlement, providing a moral framework in which they could assess and criticise the system and its practice. Workers sometimes accepted lower wages to fund modernisation. Even though such decisions could be influenced by dir- ectors, the key was their involvement in the process. Even when discussions 908 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 908 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA entailed disagreement, frustration or protest, the very fact such debates emerged was significant. What today might seem like a loss was then experienced as an investment in the future, deepening attachment to both the factory and the com- munity. Already limited by taxes and administrative constraints, participatory prac- tices even weakened during the period of austerity in the 1980s. The textile industry was systematically underfunded, underpaid (Glas 1987, 29, 30), and more heavily taxed “for the common good” (Bešter and Bregar 1977, 59). This led to persistently lower wages. While workers partly embraced their role in local development and the Yugoslav “common good”, they were also aware of the uneven distribution of the burden. Women, in particular, carried multiple burdens; undervalued at work, contributing more toward social standards, while also caring for families and households. Over time, this logic of giving without adequate return caused exhaustion and disillusionment. Yet, at the time these investments held meaning. Value was not only material. It was also created through long-term engagement, collective work, solidarity, and sacrifice. The latter should not be seen as passive endurance but as product - ive, future-oriented action. Such ideas of contribution and entitlement affected how workers understood their economic role and expectations. The idea of social property, though abstract, was rooted in such an embodied meaning of factory labour. It was grounded in the right to manage based on one’s labour, meaning that those who worked had the right to decide on income distribution, internal and external investments, and wages. While the actual influence of production workers may be debated, they were included in procedures. They also claimed this right. This fostered a sense of entitlement central to the moral economy, gen- erating expectations that workers’ investments would be recognised. These moral claims became visible in strikes, which besides wages addressed violations of shared norms and rights (Thompson 1971), with workers protest- ing against “illegitimate accumulation” (Rudi Kyovsky et al. 1968, in Kavčič et al. 1991, 101), and expressed concerns about entitlements, obligations, toler- able inequalities, and dignity. The concept of moral economy helps understand the dispossession discussed in the following section as a break in expectations formed through the experience of self-management. DISPOSSESSION AND DEINDUSTRIALISATION Using the concept of dispossession, this article presents deindustrialisation as an ongoing process that fragments working-class solidarities and marginalises their political claims. Grounded in practices and promises of self-management, these claims did not disappear overnight, and have influenced how workers have made sense of what was taken from them. Rooted in Marxist theory (Harvey 2003; Kasmir and Carbonella 2014), dis- possession describes how capitalism accumulates wealth through expropriation from peasants and Indigenous peoples to industrial workers. Although contexts 909 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 909 differ, a common thread remains: dispossession is a form of structural violence that severs people from the means for their social reproduction. In Slovenia’s post-self-management context, dispossession was not only about job losses. It was also deeply political and material, with workers being stripped of their nominal roles in factories and of futures they had helped to build. To fully understand this, we must consider the moral economy of self-management, work- ers’ understanding of how they built their factories and communities through labour and sacrifice. The dismantling of factories therefore unravelled these polit - ical and social arrangements. In the postsocialist market transition, past collect- ive achievements became devalued within the new moral and economic order. Dispossession, in this sense, extends beyond the immediate consequences of failed or corrupt privatisations, ‘wild’ privatisations, managerial exhaus- tion, or buyouts, the forms usually understood as robbery. It was more than the loss of jobs or assets, and instead marked a deeper social rupture, highlighting a broader political failure, the new economic order’s inability to recognise or incorporate the value, worth and sacrifices of workers’ labour and investments that had defined the moral economy of self-management. This was not simply an economic shift but a profound cultural and political rupture, one that disorgan- ised and displaced the working class by eroding its political, social and symbolic recognition. Workers’ investments became illegible and irrelevant. What was once a shared accomplishment and a material foundation was erased or deval- ued, leaving workers materially and symbolically dispossessed. Don Kalb described dispossession in Poland as rooted in the collapse of the intellectuals–working class alliance, and the transfer of social property to transnational capital (2009). In the Slovenian case, however, such an alliance is less clear and would require careful historical investigation. What can be observed is a more fragile and complex alignment between workers and critical intellectuals that began to emerge in the late 1980s, united by their critique of the federal state, austerity measures, and bureaucracy. Notwithstanding this shared discontent, their underlying agendas diverged. The massive strike movement after 1987 was not a call to abolish socialism or self-management but an expression of frustration with its implementation, especially inefficiencies within the Basic Organisations of Associated Labour (BOALs). These strikes mainly resisted austerity measures imposed by external creditors, which introduced wage freezes, inflation, and fiscal burdens with dis- proportionate effects on productive sectors (Prinčič and Borak 2006, 437–85). Austerity policies also reduced workers’ participation in self-management (Podvršič 2023, 62–87). Discontent targeted federal policies, bureaucratic sys- tems, and internal distributive arrangements, such as subsidies to unprofitable firms and underdeveloped regions. The industrial working-class critique resonated somewhat with intellectu- als and reformist politicians, yet at other points clashed. While workers framed their struggles in moral-economic terms rooted in socialist legacies, arguing for 910 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 910 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA efficiency criteria based on industrial labour, critical intellectuals, who formed a diverse alternative scene at the end of the 1980s 9 , could neither understand nor support the socialist iconography emerging in these protests (Vodopivec 2025 b), promoting alternative visions that challenged labour ideology itself. The ideo- logy of the new social movements was “sharply oriented against the labor move- ment, and this negation became a constitutive part of their self-definition, while simultaneously remaining blind to the legacies of older movements” (Kuzmanić 1994, 161). Many industrial workers supported the formation of an independent Slovenian state, hoping it would offer solutions to the deepening economic and political crisis. Yet workers’ hopes were soon dashed because they were increas- ingly relegated as the new social and economic order took shape. Although trans- itions differed across postsocialist states, the symbolic and material displace- ment of the working class was similarly profound. Liberal regimes reshaped class relations, and dispossession unfolded via this reconfiguration and the transfer of social property into individual ownership. The marginalisation entailed was accompanied by significant shifts in social values and political discourse. A 1988 opinion poll revealed growing hostility toward inefficient firms, while, for the first time, efficiency overtook equality as the dominant value. Most Slovenians supported “a new model of democratic, market-oriented socialism grounded in political and ownership pluralism” (Frančeškin 1988, 8). These ideological shifts were, however, not spontaneous reactions. One study by the Criminology Institute observed how they were actively promoted by managers, politicians and intellectuals, who framed labour discipline as essential for the market transition (Vodopivec 1991, 211). Yugoslav sociologists were among those reinforcing these values, legitimising the restructuring efforts and strengthening the emerging post-industrial paradigm (Cvek 2021). This coalition impacted the ideological and policy framework of the postsocialist transition, driving labour reforms that ultimately marginalised industrial workers. In this context, it is argued here that the then defenders of labour were not critical intellectuals or new political parties, but the reformed Confederation of Trade Unions of Slovenia (ZSSS), established in April 1990. Until then operat- ing under the umbrella of the Alliance of the Socialist People, ZSSS had already started to act as a workers’ organisation even before being formally restructured (see also Mesmann 2012). The confederation’s transformation was driven by political pressure from both the emerging intelligentsia and workers themselves, responding to the rapidly shifting political and economic landscape. We should move beyond a binary view of trade unions as having been either Party-affiliated or independent. The emergence of labour representatives, not - ably the reformed independent unions, was a complex political process involving 9 Martin Pogačar (2025) challenges the singular understanding of ‘alternative’ as a term and movement (see also Mastnak 2023). 911 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 911 multiple hierarchies and coalitions on different levels, including workers, pro- fessionals, managers, intellectuals, and members of former socialist institutions such as the League of Socialist Youth, who promoted new unions (independent of the Party and opposed to formal trade union structures), as well as represent- atives from the older union apparatus. Even prior to the reforms, the editor of Delavska enotnost, a journal pub- lished by ZSSS, criticised the draft Enterprise Act for “dispossessing workers by depriving them of their formal power… while intellectuals were busy debating tactics for their own struggle for power” (Kavčič 1988a). The editor was also critical of the haste with which the law was being adopted, warning that it was pushed through so quickly that “workers wouldn’t even have time to read it, let alone respond” (Kavčič 1988b, 4). Implementation of the Act triggered widespread layoffs, bankruptcies, and the erosion of production workers’ rights and status (Žnidaršič Kranjc 1994). In this rapidly changing context, it was the trade union (and that was even before its formal transformation) which advocated minimum wage legislation, standardised layoff criteria (e.g., for technological redundancies), and minimum labour standards. After the legalisation of strikes in 1988, union representatives increasingly stood with workers during bankruptcies, offering legal aid, sup- porting collective and later individual lawsuits, fighting for unpaid wages and contributions or, in the case of the 1990 Lilet strike in Maribor, joining the occu- pation of the factory. These efforts laid the groundwork for collective agreements and union demands in the 1990s. Wage disparities and the loss of labour protec- tions added to workplace and regional inequalities, intensifying dispossession despite the emerging alliances between the state, capital, and trade unions in the 1990s. This process unfolded within the broader context of parliamentary demo- cratisation and the formation of tripartite bargaining structures in the 1990s (Stanojević 1994, 2000), a discourse that often masked the ongoing economic exclusion and social marginalisation. On one hand, trade unions were helping workers in concrete situations and mobilising labour power. On the other hand, they negotiated labour power while accepting the dominant post-industrial and postsocialist transition narrative. The erosion of working-class power occurred through negotiation, with trade unions at the centre of these compromises espe- cially in relation to the rising national bourgeoisie (Bembič 2018). CONCLUSION Understanding of the postsocialist transition cannot rely solely on macroeco- nomic indicators and capital calculations. It must consider people’s experiences, class reconfigurations, inequalities, and the diverse contexts of workers, places and regions. Only by including these perspectives can we grasp the complexity of social transformation. 912 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 912 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA This article argues that postsocialist transformation should be framed via the lens of dispossession, not simply as the loss of employment or assets, but as the erosion of social life, a moral economy rooted in collective labour, long- term investment, and socialist visions of futurity. Moral economy should be understood as a political economy grounded in specific norms, values, and social arrangements. In this context, deindustrialisation is not a natural endpoint of economic activity but a form of structural violence characterised by political invisibility, social devaluation, material and bodily dispossession. Ethnographic narratives, such as Silva’s story, reveal how dispossession included bodily and symbolic loss, and reflected a deeper social rupture. The presented research shows that dispossession in Slovenia unfolded in mul- tiple, intertwined forms. It exposes a broader political failure, the new economic order’s inability to recognise or incorporate the value and worth of (industrial) labour. The concept of moral economy helps with understanding dispossession that goes beyond the material, as a rupture in historically grounded expecta- tions of entitlement, recognition and reciprocity, expectations influenced by the experience of self-management. The loss was uneven given that the transition evolved in different ways. Factories restructured even within the trade union negotiations, and while some sectors continued to negotiate, labour-intensive sectors like the textile industry were gradually dismantled. This was driven by a prevailing discourse of global- isation, presented as inevitable, neutral and unquestionable. Such understanding impacted public narratives and structured how the economic restructuring, and the dispossession it entailed, was carried out. These complexities call for ethnographic and anthropological approaches attentive to the moral, embodied and situated dimensions of dispossession and sensitive to diverse cultural understandings and local explanations. In line with anthropology’s commitments to reflexivity and situated knowledge, this research critically reflects on the discursive fields and knowledge regimes that affect both the object of study and the researcher’s position. It challenges the political, institutional and disciplinary frameworks underpinning key concepts like “transition”, understood not as a neutral but as a historically and politically situated category shaped by normative and epistemological assumptions. Such a critical perspective is essential for revealing the experiences of dispossession and the moral economy of industrial labour, offering a nuanced understanding of the cultural and political ruptures of the postsocialist transformation. 913 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 913 BIBLIOGRAPHY Arzenšek, Vladimir. 1981. “Samoupravljanje i struktura moči; stabilnost sistema dominacija.” Revija za sociologiju XI (1–2): 3–11. Bembič, Branko. 2017. “From Victory to Victory to the Final Retreat: Changing Balance of Class Forces in the Slovenian Transition.” Tiempo devorado 4 (2): 363–39. Bešter, Romana, and Lea Bregar. 1977. Raziskava o razdelitvi osebnih dohodkov v Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Inštitut za ekonomska raziskovanja (unpublished). Bonfiglioli, Chiara. 2019. Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector. London: I.B. Tauris. Boyer, Dominik. 2010. “From Algos to Autonomos: Nostalgic Eastern Europe as Postimperial Mania.” Post-Communist Nostalgia, Maria Todorova and Zsuzsa Gille (eds.), 17–28. New York: Berghahn. Byrne, David. 2002. “Industrial Culture in a Post-Industrial World: The Case of the North East of England.” City 6 (3): 279–89. Burawoy, Michael, and Katherine Verdery, eds. 1999. Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in Postsocialist World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Clarke, Jackie. 2015. “Closing Time: Deindustrialization and Nostalgia in Contemporary France.” History Workshop Journal 79 (1): 107–25. Climo, Jacob J. and Maria G. Catell, eds. 2002. Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives. Walnut Creek: Altamira. Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cowie, Jefferson, and Joseph Heathcott. 2003. Beyond the Ruins. The Meaning of Dein dus- trialization. Ithaka, NY: Cornell University Press. Cvek, Sven. 2021. “Transformacija rada, proizvodnja znanja i klasna borba.” Transformacija rada: Narativi, prakse, režimi, Ozren Biti and Reana Senjković (eds.), 13–46. Zagreb: Institut za etnologijo i folkloristiko. Draksler, Katja, Nataša Dernovšček Hafner, Niko Arnerič, Metoda Dodič Fikfak. 2018. “Restructuring of a Textile Manufacturing Company and Workers’ Health.” New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy 28 (1): 131–50. https://doi. org/10.1177/1048291118764601. Ferfila, Bogomil and Paul Phillips. 2010. Slovenia’s Transition: From Medieval Roots to the European Union. Lanham: Lexington Books. Frančeškin, Marija. 1988. “Izostren portret Slovenca.” Delavska Enotnost, 10 June 1988, 8. Gerenčer, Ivan. 2010. “Mura se je dvignila iz prahu kakor feniks.” Delo, 31 July 2010, 1. Glas, Miroslav. 1987. “Področje razdelitve v luči aktualnih problemov.” Delitev dohodka in osebnih dohodkov (unpublished research report), 29–30. Ljubljana: Ekonomska fakulteta Borisa Kidriča. Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. High, Steven. 2021. “The ‘Normalized Quiet of Unseen Power’.” Urban History Review 48 (2): 97–116. High, Steven, MacKinnon, Lachlan and Andrew Perchard (eds). 2017. The Deindustrialized World: Confronting Ruination in Postindustrial Places. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Kalb, Don. 2000. “Localizing Flows: Power, Paths, Institutions, and Networks.” In: The Ends of Globalization: Bringing Society Back In, Don Kalb (ed.), 1–29. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 914 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 914 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA Kalb, Don. 2009. “Conversations with a Polish Populist: Tracing Hidden Histories of Globa- lization, Class, and Dispossession in Postsocialism (and Beyond).” American Ethnologist 36 (2): 207–23. Kasmir, Sharryn and August Carbonella. 2014. “Introduction: Toward a Global Anthropology of Labor.” In: Blood and Fire: Toward a Global Anthropology of Labor, Sharryn Kasmir and August Carbonella, (eds.), 1–29. Oxford, New York: Berghahn. Kavčič, Franček. 1988a. “Boj za oblast.” Delavska Enotnost, 27. December 1998, 4. Kavčič, Franček. 1988b. “Gre za ponovno razlastitev delavcev.” Delavska Enotnost, 11.november 1988, 3. Kovačič, Gorazd. 2008. “Vpliv individualizacije in internalizacije na razredno zavest.” Sindikalno gibanje odpira nove poglede, Goran Lukič and Rastko Močnik (eds.), 117–36. Ljubljana: Zveza svobodnih sindikatov Slovenije. Kuzmanić, Tonči. 1994. “Strikes, Trade Unions and Slovene Independence.” Independent Slovenia, Jill Benderly and Evan Kraft (eds.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Linkon, Sherry Lee. 2018. The Half Life of Deindustrialization. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Leskošek, Vesna. 2011. “Strukturne reforme na področju socialnega varstva.” Teorija in praksa 48 (Special Issue): 1264–280. Mastnak, Tomaž. 2023. Osemdeseta: Pojmovnik novega kulturnega polja. Ljubljana: ZRC SAZU. Mencinger, Jože. 2001. “Why is Transition in Slovenia Often Considered a Success Story.” Journal des economists at des Etudes Humaines 11 (1): 1–16. Mesman, Tibor. 2012. “Strategic Choices During System Change: Peak Level Unions and Their Struggles for Political Relevance in Post-Socialist Slovenia, Serbia and Poland.” Doctoral dissertation. Central European University. Močnik, Rastko. 2010. “Delovni razredi v sodobnem kapitalizmu.” In: Postfordizem, Razprave o sodobnem kapitalizmu, Gal Kirn (ed.), 149–202. Ljubljana: Mirovni inštitut. Munt, Sally. 2000. Cultural Studies and the Working Class, Subject to Change. London, New York: Cassell. Musić, Goran. 2021. Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class: The Story of Two Self- Managed Factories. Budapest, New York: CEU Press. Palomera, Jaime and Theodora Vetta. 2016. “Moral Economy: Rethinking a Radical Concept.” Anthropological Theory 16 (4): 413–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499616655912. Petrović Tanja. 2015. “Studying Postsocialism in Slovenia: The State of the Art.” In: Changing Paradigms: The State of the Ethnological Sciences in Southeast Europe, Roth Klaus (ed.), 267–81. Berlin: LIT. Pogačar, Martin. 2025. Alternativna kultura in alternativa (Breda Luthar), Generacija, Pojmovnik novega kulturnega polja, zvezek št. 2. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC. Podvršič, Ana. 2023. Iz socializma v periferni kapitalizem: Neoliberalizacija Slovenije. Ljubljana: Založba Cf*. Pravilnik o poklicnih bolezni. UL RS 25, 24. February 2023. https://www.uradni-list.si/_pdf/2023/ Ur/u2023025.pdf. Prinčič, Jože and Neven Borak. 2006. Iz reforme v reformo, slovensko gospodarstvo 1970– 1991. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. Rus, Veljko. 1985. “Petintrideset let samoupravljanja.” Družboslovne razprave 2 (3): 3–15. Rus, Veljko and Frane Adam. 1986. Moč in nemoč samoupravljanja. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. 915 • let. 62, 4/2025 • From Self-Management to Postsocialism: Industrial Workers’ Silenced Experiences… 915 Skeggs, Beverly. 1997. Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Slovenska industrijska strategija 2021–2030. 2021. GZS.si. Ministrstvo za gospodarski razvoj in tehnologijo: Ljubljana. https://www.gzs.si/Portals/206/Slovenska%20industrijska%20 strategija.pdf. Smith, Neil. 2008. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Stanojević, Miroslav. 1994. “Neokorporativistična regulacija industrijskih odnosov.” Družbo- slovne razprave 10 (17/18): 77–91. Stanojević, Miroslav. 2000. “Slovenian Trade Unions – The Birth of Labour Organizations in Post-communism.” Journal of Social Sciences Studies 16: 87–100. Stein, Howard. 1998. Euphemism, Spin, and the Crisis in Organizational Life. Oklahoma City: University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Storey, Robert. 2017. “Beyond the Body Count.” In: The Deindustrialized World: Confronting Ruination in Postindustrial Places, Steven High, Lachlan MacKinnon, and Andrew Perchard (eds.), 46–67. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Strangleman, Tim. 2012. “Work Identity in Crisis? Rethinking the Problem of Attachment and Loss at Work.” Sociology 46: 411–25. Svetlik, Ivan, and Mavricija Batić. 2002. “Aktivna politika zaposlovanja.” In: Politika zaposlovanja, Ivan Svetlik, Jože Glazer, Alenka Kajzer, Martina Trbanc (eds.), 174–99. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede. Tajnikar, Maks. 2002. Tvegano poslovodenje: Knjiga o gazelah in rastočih poslih. Portorož: Visoka strokovna šola za podjetništvo. Tajnikar, Maks and Ksenja Pušnik. 2009. “Mura ni reka, je podjetje : Reševanje tekstilnega giganta.” Delo, sobotna priloga, 5. September 2009, 12, 13. Thompson, Edward P. 1971. “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.” Past & Present 50: 76–136. Vodopivec, Katja. 1991. “Javno mnenje in represija.” Revija za kriminalistiko in kriminologijo 42 (3): 206–12. Vaccaro, Ismail, Krista Harper and Seth Murray. 2016. “Introducing the Anthropology of Disconnection: Ethnographies of Post-industrialism.” In: Anthropology of Postindustrialism: Ethnographies of Disconnection, Ismail Vaccaro, Krista Harper and Seth Murray, 1–12. New York, London: Routledge. Vodopivec, Nina. 2021. “Tu se ne bo nikoli več šivalo. Doživljanja izgube dela in propada tovarne.” Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino (Razpoznavanja 45). Vodopivec, Nina. 2025a (in press). “Socialist Democracy.” In: Visions and Practices of Democracy in the Socialist and Post-Colonial States, Ana Kladnik (ed.). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Vodopivec, Nina. 2025b (in press). “Stavke in sindikati.« In: Socialistična zveza delovnega ljudstva – kdaj, zakaj, kako, Marko Zajc and Nesa Vrečar (eds.). Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino. Vogrinc, Jože. 2009. “Reševanje Mure – nacionalni šport.” Mladina 32, 13 August 2009. https:// www.mladina.si/47953/resevanje-mure-nacionalni- –sport/. Williams, Raymond. 1997. Navadna kultura: Izbrani spisi. Ljubljana: Studia Humanitatis. Žnidaršič Kranjc, Alenka, ed. 1994. Privatizacija ali zakonita kraja: divja privatizacija, načrtovana kraja, neznanje, ali slovenska nevoščljivost. Postojna: Dej. Yalcin Heckmann, Lale, ed. 2022. Moral Economy at Work: Ethnographic Investigations in Eurasia. New York, Oxford: Berghahn. 916 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA • Nina VODOPIVEC 916 TEORIJA IN PRAKSA OD SAMOUPRAVLJANJA DO POSTSOCIALIZMA: UTIŠANE IZKUŠNJE RAZLASTITVE INDUSTRIJSKIH DELAVCEV V SLOVENIJI Povzetek. Članek raziskuje postsocialistične politične in ekonomske preo- brazbe v Sloveniji skozi izkušnje tekstilnih delavk in delavcev. Na podlagi dolgole- tnega etnografskega raziskovanja razkriva razkorak med prevladujočimi makroe- konomskimi 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. Postsociali- stična 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, druž- bene in afektivne razsežnosti razlastitve. Ključni pojmi: industrijsko delavstvo, postsocializem, razlastitev, moralna ekonomija.