Paper Short Abstract:

The proposal aims at unwriting (the notion of) nostalgia: not only that the term nostalgia bears mostly negative set of values and that it is heteroglossic, but it also works in promoting neoliberal goals (worldwide) and (when linked to the notion of post-socialism) in orientalizing the SEE.

Paper Abstract:

“A specter haunts the world of Academia: a study of Post-Communist nostalgia,” wrote Maria Todorova in 2010. This proposal aims to unwrite the notion of nostalgia: not only that it carries a largely negative set of values and is heteroglossic, but it also serves to promote neoliberal goals on a global scale.

When linked to the notion of post-socialism, it acts as a tool for the (self)orientalization of Southeast Europe: as some researchers have shown (Boyer 2010, Lankauskas 2015), the concept of post-socialist nostalgia has become part of a discourse that could/should be recognized as a post-imperialist, practical tool that helps anchor SEE in the pre-neoliberal past. It is intriguing to note that in many other (“Western”) neoliberal societies, nostalgia is perceived as a part of populist political appeals, (or) a longing for times that are forever gone and, fortunately, will never return (industrialization, centralized economic measures, etc.). Using ethnographic material (“Eastern” and “Western”) on the topic of work and employment, we aim to show that a significant part of “nostalgic longings” reflects pure facts (and not /just/ feelings), which is most often neglected due to the perpetuation and naturalization of global hierarchies of knowledge (Triglava 2024). Comparing ethnographic material from the “East” and the “West” reveals the true nature of the mainstream use of the term nostalgia: despite the vast amount of relevant literature (or precisely because of it), this term still wins the battle for an unjust, competitive, socially insensitive, individualistic global society.