Negotiating Variegated Stabilities
Working Conditions of Supermarket Employees in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6048058 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Milana Čergić (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 73 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 313-334 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Southeast European Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2701-8199 • E-ISSN: 2701-8202 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/soeu-2025-0020 |
| OpenAlex | W7105653235 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
This ethnographic article explores the everyday experiences of supermarket employees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on one hypermarket in Tuzla. Once a highly industrialised city, Tuzla’s landscape has been reshaped by the rise of retail trade, with the Bingo supermarket chain becoming a dominant economic force. Despite paying low wages, the company is perceived as a source of stability and formal employment in an industry where informal jobs predominate. The article examines how employees navigate the paradox of being simultaneously exploited and protected within the supermarket setting. It introduces the concept of “variegated stabilities” – forms of workplace security that are arbitrary, temporary, and dependent on personal relationships with the management. The stabilities that employees gain and foster through shared bonds of mutual support contrast with the perceived absence of the state and reflect the negotiation the workers engage in to achieve a meaningful life in a private company
Ethnography · Everyday life · Hypermarket · Negotiation · State (computer science · Work (physics · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Emotional Labor in Professions · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact
Precarity, Precariousness, and Vulnerability
The Precariat
Socialist Unemployment
Un businessman « poussé » par l’élite politique ou un bienfaiteur ? Négocier le succès entrepreneurial en Bosnie-Herzégovine
‘Who sows hunger, reaps rage’
Bosnie, anatomie d'un conflit
Unbribable Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ethnographies of Social Support
Blood and Fire
Socioeconomic Justice
Whose death, whose eco-revival
Marlène Benquet, Les damnées de la caisse. Grève dans un hypermarché
Transformation in the political economy of Bosnia since Dayton
The ‘Paradox’ of Tuzla City
When the “People” Leave
Post-socialist deindustrialisation and its gendered structure of feeling
Losing the global
Sacrificial Citizenship
Toward a critical politics of precarity
"Trabajo de paso" y condición juvenil en una cadena multinacional de supermercados en la ciudad de Rosario, Argentina
Women in the Socialist Fish-Canning Industry
Academic precarity as hierarchical dependence in the Max Planck Society
Moral economy of flexible production
When All That Is Solid Does Not Melt into Air
For an anthropology of the demoralized
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |