Social dynamics and nationhood in employment politics in the Trepça mining complex in Socialist Kosovo (1960s)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the interconnection of socio-economic divisions and nationhood in Socialist Kosovo through a case-study of employment politics in the Trepça mining complex during the 1960s. The article first describes the shifting cadre politics in Trepça, which aimed to increase the degree of skills of the work collective and to address the dramatic under-representation of Albanians in management and specialist positions. It then analyses the departure of Serb and Montenegrin specialists from the enterprise and the internal dispute over the proportional relevance of socio-economic and national grounds for this trend. The second half of the article situates these developments against two levels of social division in the enterprise: vertical social divisions between manual production workers and specialist cadres and horizontal divisions at the top management level. The article argues that the divisions between low-skilled production workers and management personnel was not politically relevant. Such vertical social divisions were depoliticised and denationalised. The outspoken national dimension of cadre politics for specialist personnel and the pluralist tendencies in the management culture of Yugoslav enterprises during the late 1960s, on the other hand, nationalised and politicised the competition between a new generation of Albanian technically-schooled specialists and the predominantly Serb, politically-appointed managers in function.