Getting by in postsocialist Romania : labor, the body, & working-class culture / David A. Kideckel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kideckel, David A., 1948-

Series:

New anthropologies of Europe

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Romania--Social conditions--1989-.

Romania.

Social conditions.

Post-communism--Romania.

Post-communism.

Physical Description:

xii, 266 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, Ind. : Indiana University Press, [2008]

Summary:

This compelling examination of the conditions of postsocialist labor and agency describes how two groups of romanian industrial workers have fared since the end of socialism. Once labor's elite, the celebrated coal miners of the Jiu Valley and the chemical workers of the fagaras region had many social privileges and often derived genuine satisfaction from their work. Today, they are a rarely noted casualty of postsocialist transformations. Fear, distance, and alienation are the physical manifestations of stress experienced due to their precarious job status, declining health, and loss of a social safety net. David A. Kideckel traces these issues in the context of labor, political relationships, domestic and community life, gender identities, and health. Drawing on more than three decades of fieldwork and presenting many individuals' narratives in their own words, this study provides a poignant and illuminating portrayal of the everyday lives of ordinary people.

Contents:

Getting by in postsocialism : labor, bodies, voices

How workers became "others" : talking alienation

Postsocialist labor pains : fear, distance, and narrative in the workplace

The postsocialist body politic

Houses of stone or of straw? : postsocialist worker communities

Strangers in their own skin : workers and gender in postsocialism

The embodied enemy : stress, health, and agency

What is to be done?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [245]-259) and index.

ISBN:

9780253349576

0253349575

9780253219404

025321940X

OCLC:

180574216