Overview

This compelling ethnographic study describes how two groups of Romanian industrial workers have fared since the end of socialism. Once labour'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 post socialist 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. Kideckel traces these issues in the context of labour, political relationships, domestic and community life, gender identities, and health. Drawing on more than three decades of fieldwork, he presents many narratives from select individuals, in their own words, providing a poignant and illuminating perspective on the everyday lives of ordinary people.

Full Product Details

9780253349576

Table of Contents

Reviews

David Kideckel challenges celebratory images of post-socialism by focusing on the often neglected working class and allowing the disenfranchised to speak for themselves. In so doing he provides a contribution to the ethnography of eastern Europe that speaks poignantly to broader discussions of work, class, and gender under neoliberalism. Gerald Creed, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Author Information

David A. Kideckel is Professor of Anthropology at Central Connecticut State University. He is author of The Solitude of Collectivism: Romanian Villagers to the Revolution and Beyond and has produced a video documentary focusing on Romania's Jiu Valley coal miners, entitled Days of the Miners: Life and Death of a Working Class Culture.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available