Description
This paper analyses the potential of the workplace for peacebuilding by looking into the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In its socialist past, the country’s coexistence between different ethnic groups was largely attributed to industrial development, as people made massive moves from rural to urban areas in search of employment. Industrialisation was followed by a large-scale urban development which included housing for employees of new factories. Workers interacted in the workplace and in their new neighbourhoods, which led to an increase in inter-ethnic exchange to an extent never seen before. The role of the socialist system was crucial in this regard as it enabled an unprecedented level of labour rights and opportunities for socialising inside and outside the factories. The war and the ensuing ethnic cleansing, however, turned most of these neighbourhoods and workplaces into mono-ethnic spaces.
After the conflict, the aggressive marketisation approach of international interveners resulted in the loss of many jobs in the industrial sector, which further reduced the chances for ethnically mixed workplaces and opportunities for inter-ethnic socialising. Over time, however, some companies have crossed the ethnic divide by hiring workers from different ethnic backgrounds. This paper explores an ethnically mixed workplace in such an enterprise in Bosnia via ethnographic research, undertaken over a period of eight months. It therefore focuses on the micro level, generally overlooked in international relations’ debates on peace. At the same time, the paper discusses the macro level by comparing the earlier socialist political economy with the current neoliberal one. Insights from the micro level are collected through participant observation and interviews with workers in the enterprise which are then compared with findings from interviews with senior citizens who have spent most of their working years in factories under a socialist system. The research looks in particular at how the treatment of workers under different systems provides different outcomes for relationships built in the workplace. The paper argues that the potential of the workplace for inter-ethnic cooperation is quite limited due to the neoliberal context and can even lead to further grievances.
