A city full of supermarkets
Analysing ‘economic success’ on the European semi-periphery
This presentation analyses how a domestic retail trade company transformed life in the city of Tuzla, replacing the once-dominant coal and salt mining industries from the Yugoslav era. It explores the company's economic ascent within the broader context of political, economic, and social shifts over the past thirty years in Bosnia. I draw from a one-year-long ethnography conducted in 2018–2019, where I researched the imaginaries and actions of citizens in Tuzla. Central to the analysis are the diverse roles and perspectives of the company's actors. These include managers who view their work as contributing to national unity through economic success, the owner
who positions himself as an antidote to political corruption, and employees who, despite enjoying stable employment, must navigate a challenging labor environment. This environment is characterized by arbitrary legal interpretations and a lack of union activities. These dynamics underscore the negotiations for stability and the contemplation of migration to achieve a better future.
Milana Čergić currently works as a postdoc at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz. She defended her PhD thesis on Tuzlan supermarkets at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, in a cotutelle agreement with École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Currently, she is conducting another fieldwork project in Montenegro, focusing on two topics: entrepreneurs and digitalization in the context of prosocial giving.