Lost objects: Ethnicity, consumption, and gendered spaces in Macedonia

This dissertation examines the local and transnational processes that have led to ethnic conflict in Macedonia among people divided along religious (orthodox Christian vs. Muslim), ethnic (Macedonian vs. Albanian), class, and gender axes. Based on extensive ethnographic research from June 1999 until January 2001 in Kumanovo, an ethnically-mixed town in northern Macedonia, this study documents the reformulation of class, ethnicity, and gender since the constitution of independent Macedonia in 1991. The central argument is that both ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians have experienced losses of privileges along class, ethnic, and gender lines. For Macedonians it is the disappearance of the “working class” prevalent during the communist Yugoslav Federation that has caused loss of class privileges such as a state-sponsored, comfortable lifestyle. The unprecedented pauperization for most of the people and the conspicuous nouveau-riche presence of a few, manifested through a conceited display of commodities, have changed the social and physical space between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Albanians in contemporary Macedonia, which, in turn, engenders strong ethnic tension. For Albanians, the presence of young college-educated Albanian women has changed the cultural fabric of the traditional Albanian family. Many of the newly educated women, for instance, now earn more than the men in their households and reject traditional values such as having a collective family budget or accepting arranged marriages with only Albanian men. Because women are still viewed as the bearers of Albanian culture due to their reproductive (biological and social) function, a fear has been fostered among the male Albanian elite of losing their culture and lineage. This study seeks to unravel how the articulation of class and gender losses affects ethnic tension in the country.