Social Science Forum: Issue 108-109
Populism within the political landscape: right, left, ... and centre
Hajdeja Iglič
Abstract: The article examines populism from the perspective of political demand, concentrating on analysis of populist attitudes held by the Slovenian population. The article opens with a conceptual discussion, addressing the debate on whether populist attitudes should be defined and measured across two or three dimensions. The study then investigates how populists position themselves on the political spectrum, seeking to determine whether populist attitudes transcend the traditional left–right political divide. Contrary to the general trend observed across European countries, the findings suggest that in Slovenia populist voters are largely situated at the political centre, with populist attitudes showing notable convergence between the centre and the far-right. The critical line dividing these two groups appears in their views on social inequality. The research was conducted online in early 2023.
Key words: populism, populist attitudes, measuring populism, populism in Slovenia
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"Dramatic", "crazy", and "unworthy" women: Endometriosis and the (medical) perceptions of female pain
Teja Kosi
Abstract: Taking a critical feminist cultural studies approach, this article describes, analyses, reflects and theorises women’s pain in the case of endometriosis. Western historical discourses on endometriosis over the last 2,500 years offer a basis for analysing the position the disease holds in contemporary society. Using locally limited digital ethnography (the stories of 33 women published on the website of Endozavest – Society for Raising Awareness for Endometriosis between 16 January 2017 and 24 April 2023), supported by secondary sources, three ways in which women’s pain is perceived and managed are presented and contextualised: dramatised pain, mental illness, and “female deficit”. The article reveals how patriarchal violence within the medical system perpetuates aspects of physical pain that directly/indirectly discipline women’s bodies and push them into a variety of unwanted sexual and reproductive roles.
Key words: endometriosis, female pain, medical violence, contemporary perceptions of femininity, unwanted patriarchal roles
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Introduction to the thematic bloc: Memory studies for the people: Marxism, and popular culture in contemporary approaches to memory studies
Gal Kirn & Natalija Majsova
A contribution to the Marxist memory studies: The structural need of capital to forget violence and eternally remember debt
Gal Kirn
Abstract: The text departs from Traverso’s hypothesis concerning the impossibility of Marxism and Memory Studies encountering each other, and juxtaposes it with a few theoretical areas in Marx that may be useful for contributing to Marxist Memory Studies. The dialectical relationship within capitalism between the structurally necessary forgetting of violence and the structural remembering of debt is described before the concept of the primitive accumulation of capital and Lazzarato’s (2013) crucial notion of indebted subjectivity is deployed. The moral and memorial aspects of debt have been often overlooked by Marxism, while the relationship of memory to debt and capital has been completely ignored by the majority of memory-studies scholars. In the conclusion, it is argued that this missing link provides fertile grounds for Marxist Memory Studies and for furthering debates, especially on the topics of reparation, restitution, and debt cancellation.
Key words: Marxist memory studies, indebted subject, remembrance of debt, absence of violence, cancellation of debt, Enzo Traverso, primitive accumulation of memory, memory economy
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Memory as reproductive labour: From traumatic remembrance to institutionalised victimhood
Daniel Palacios González
Abstract: The aim of the text is to connect the idea of remembrance to that of social reproduction labour, referencing as a case study the mass graves as an outcome of the coup, the civil war, and the dictatorship in Spain since 1936. These mass graves have been the central axis for articulating memorialist discourse in contemporary Spain. The memory of the mass graves is therefore a relevant object of study. The frameworks of analysis developed by Lise Vogel, Alva Gotby, Tithi Bhattacharya, Susan Ferguson, Silvia Federici, and Hannah Proctor are applied to the results of historical and ethnographic research, which have reclaimed a way of relating to the mass graves, from mourning to monumental practices or institutional political action. The article addresses the importance of emotional labour as part of memory, and how this is a contested field in which the possibility of consciousness-raising is confronted by the state and its apparatuses, whose imperative is to reproduce the mode of production.
Key words: social reproduction theory, materialism, women, mass graves, Spanish civil war
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The narrative of a transformative leader: neoliberal memory politics and reframing of Augusto Pinochet in Chile
Maria L. Urbina Montana
Abstract: The paper explores how General Augusto Pinochet’s death in 2006 catalysed a shift in the collective memory of Chile, reframing him as a transformative leader who modernised the nation with neoliberal reforms. Rather than pursuing systematic empirical analysis, the paper adopts a conceptual approach that draws on Basil Bernstein’s theory of recontextualisation and Mark Fisher’s concept of capitalist realism to examine the contribution made by media narratives to this reframing. Through thematic analysis of cross-platform cultural texts, including news coverage and the films The Death of Pinochet and El Conde, it is argued that these narratives strategically separate economic success from political repression, marginalising working-class memory and reinforcing neoliberal hegemony. The Chilean case is situated within broader global memory politics, with a comparative reference made to Margaret Thatcher’s legacy in the United Kingdom. By highlighting the ideological work performed by historical narratives, the paper contributes to debates on memory, neoliberalism, and the erasure of resistance in post-authoritarian societies.
Key words: Augusto Pinochet, transformative leader, memory, cross platform discourse, capitalist realism
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Modern, postmodern and metamodern structures of feeling: Big data analysis of memories of Josip Broz – Tito in the 21st century
Jernej Kaluža & Natalija Majsova
Abstract: The article investigates the explanatory potential of metamodern memory that accommodates contradictions and reflects contemporary struggles over collective identity and its temporal dimensions. The authors examine the way memories of socialist Yugoslavia – particularly of Josip Broz – Tito – are articulated and mediated by generational, political and media dynamics. Based on big data analysis of 179 memory interviews conducted by undergraduate students with individuals born between 1940 and 1955, three structures of feeling are identified: a modern one centred on unity and progress, a postmodern turn marked by fragmentation and scepticism, and a metamodern sensibility that oscillates between sincerity and irony. Tito emerges as a symbolic figure whose meaning shifts across life stages and media representations. Relying on mixed methods, the authors trace how memories reflect evolving political contexts and media ecologies.
Key words: metamodern memory, structure of feeling, communicative memory, socialist Yugoslavia, Josip Broz – Tito
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Bold smugglers and DIY heroes: collective memories and erasures of Slovenian gaming histories
Nina Cvar & Jasmina Šepetavc
Abstract: The article explores how gaming cultures in socialist Yugoslavia – particularly in Slovenia –are remembered and commemorated today. Drawing on the technostalgic momentum that has seen renewed interest in peripheral gaming histories, we examine how Yugoslavia’s unique geopolitical position and socialist experiment in self-management fostered vibrant do-it-yourself (DIY) computing and gaming cultures. Focusing on key memory sites – primarily the book Prva Bitnost and the documentary Tehnika ljudstvu – we: 1) outline the contexts of the emergence of Yugoslav games in the 1980s; 2) analyse how they are being narrativised through nostalgic lenses in the present; and 3) critique the exclusions embedded in these narratives. It is argued that these commemorative practices often reinforce mnemonic hegemony privileging male-coded heroism and entrepreneurial myth-making, while marginalising women, queer voices, and class-based experiences.
Key words: Yugoslav video games, collective memory, technostalgia, Slovenia, gender and gaming, DIY computing
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Yugowave and Serbwave on YouTube: audience analysis by community detection
Robert Bobnič & Jan Kostanjevec
Abstract: The article examines the phenomenon of Yugowave, including its offshoots, on the YouTube platform. As an online audiovisual genre, which originated from vaporwave and eventually developed independently, it serves as a remediation of collective memory, featuring nostalgic references to the era of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or the war conflicts that followed its dissolution. Drawing on data from 426 videos and 14,344 comments, we examine the genre’s evolution and map audience communities using the Leiden method on a bipartite network linking commenters to their public YouTube subscriptions. The analysis suggests that the war aesthetics of Serbwave prevail among the videos and its commenters may be described as a wide international audience, predominately holding interests in history, militarism and gaming.
Key words: vaporwave, Yugowave, Serbwave, YouTube, community detection
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Book reviews
Anastasia Barone Ana Kralj, Tanja Rener, Vesna Leskošek, Metka Mencin, Mirijana Ule and Slavko Kurdija: Abortion and reproductive rights in Slovenia. A case of resistance. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2024.
Tjaša Učakar Niko Toš, Peter Klinar: Sociologija in teorija mednarodnih migracij. Ljubljana: Založba FDV, 2023.
Marko Hočevar Tibor Rutar: Capitalism for realists: Virtues and vices of the modern economy. London: Routledge, 2023.
Igor Jurekovič Olivier Roy: Je Evropa krščanska? Ljubljana: Založba Krtina, 2023.
Primož Krašovec James M. Robertson: Mediating Spaces. Literature, Politics and the Scale of Yugoslav Socialism, 1870–1995. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024.
Gorazd Kovačič Tomaž Mastnak: Civilna družba. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2023.
Antonija Todić Brigitte Aulenbacher, Helma Lutz, Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, Karin Schwiter (eds.): Home Care for Sale: The Transnational Brokering of Senior Care in Europe. London: SAGE, 2024.
Majda Černič Istenič Lev Centrih, Polona Sitar: Pol kmet, pol proletarec: integrirana kmečka ekonomija v socialistični Sloveniji, 1945–1991. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem, 2023.