Naumovic It s Hard for Chicks to Take to the Sky

8/3/2019 Naumovic It s Hard for Chicks to Take to the Sky

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SOCIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, SPECIAL ISSUE 2005

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ITS HARD FOR CHICKS TO TAKE TO THE SKY!

CONTINGENCY AND CULTURE IN THE STRUGGLE

TO ESTABLISH AN ORGANIC AGRO-BUSINESS

IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIA

SLOBODAN NAUMOVI

Abstract: This qualitative, mini case-study examines the reasons that influenced anagricultural engineer and former top manager in the agro-veterinary section of a largeSerbian export-import firm to attempt to establish his own organic agro-business, as wellas the factors that have turned his venture into an occasional struggle against the windmills.The case study offers a personal insight into the country-specific entrepreneurial andsurvival strategies needed to remain economically and physically viable in the rapidlydeteriorating economic setting characterised by a strange mixture of emerging statecapitalism, primitive accumulation, legal system and agricultural policy breakdown, andrampant corruption. It also transmits fragments of a personal, insiders view of thechanging roles of culture in the complex processes of political, economic and socialtransformation, as well as of the nature and consequences of the interplay of what couldbe described as European and Serbian socio-economic cultures.

The precondition for the development of the agro-sector in Serbia lies in the resolutionof problems of institutional nature, the transformation of legal-economical regulations,the decrease in administrative interference, and, in the first place, in the establishmentof a functioning market of capital. Everything else is pure demagogy.

G17 Bulletin, 2000, 7: 5

I think that our state lacks agrarian policy the most of all policies, it lacks agrarianpolicy even more than foreign policy.

Milutin1 , key informant, 2003

One thing is certain, however, and that is that the future of those states now emergingfrom the debris of war and their place in a wider European economy will be shapedin significant measure by the changing nature and role of agriculture.

John B. Allcock,Explaining Yugoslavia, 2000, p. 144

This paper2 is based on a series of in-depth interviews with a former top managerin the agro-veterinary section of a large Serbian export-import firm. In the interviews,

1 All the names and initials that appear in this text have been changed.2 This paper is an adapted and shortened version of the report on the agricultural case study in the


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Sociological Problems, Special Issue 2005

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the informant: a) narrates the ups and downs of his professional career; b) examinesthe reasons that have influenced him to leave his once esteemed job and attempt toestablish an organic agro-business of his own; c) presents a personal view of political,

cultural, and other factors that have caused the decline of Yugoslav and Serbian

economies; d) explains his business and family survival strategies; e) discussesobstacles to his ongoing, and envisaged projects; and f) compares the European andSerbian business and agro-business milieus 3 . Additional information was suppliedthrough informal interviews with the informants relatives and professional associates,as well as observation on the spot. As is obvious, this case-study focuses on the

individual level and on a subjective, insiders view of the legal and institutional settingin the domain of Serbian agriculture and economy in general. It therefore takes acourse that is somewhat against the current of the overall research pattern of theProject, and of most research on the differences between national socio-economiccultures4 .

The reason for adopting such an approach stems from the belief that the analysisofreflexive individual professional life histories, coupled by observation can contributeto a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which socio-economic culturesactually function in the local, national or supra-national settings5 . Namely, apart from

frame of the project After the Accession The Socio-Economic Culture of Eastern Europe in the EnlargedUnion: An Asset or a Liability?, headed by Janos Matyas Kovacs in the frame of the Institute for SocialSciences (IWM, Vienna), and financed by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am grateful toTanya Chavdarova for inviting me to present a version of this paper at the Second Regional Workshop ofBalkan Sociologists, organised by the Bulgarian Sociological Association in Sofia in June 2004, as wellas for her help and understanding during the preparation of the final version.

3 The informant also answered to, and commented on questionnaires designed to gauge those somewhatelusive entities, usually termed national economic cultures. However, due to lack of space, this interestingtopic will not be discussed in detail in this paper. T. Chavdarova kindly allowed me to consult herunpublished extensive studies on the economic culture of sole proprietors in Bulgaria and Macedonia(see references), based on G. Hofstedes (1984) and F. Trompenaars and C. Hampden-Turners (1998)questionnaires, as well as the working version of the questionnaire used by the Bulgarian team. Thesequestionnaires were used to provoke reflexive comments on the central values of Serbian economicculture, and as an aid in the search for discrepancies between the deeper layer of values, norms andattitudes, the more changeable level of opinions, and described or observed forms of behaviour.

4 First, the Project, and in particular the interview plans from Annex 1 of theAddition to the originaltext, favour outsiders (Westerners active in a candidate country) and repatriates (individuals returningto do business in their home country after a prolonged Western professional experience) perspectives onlocal socio-economic culture, and even more so the dynamic of outsider-insider cultural dialogue. Second,the Project seems to favour a culturalist and value-centred, instead of institutionalist, contextualist andbehaviour-centred perspectives. Third, instead of analyzing particular candidate-countries and theireconomic cultures as such, the Project focuses on the perceptions that different social actors have ofprocesses of culture contact, culture shock and culture change, as well as of the effects of such processesboth on the socio-economic cultures that exist in the EU (the European Social Model), and on thecomplex cultural hybrids supposedly emerging in the enlarged EU. Fourth, in order to achieve the envisagedtasks, the Project intends to target those domains in which the contact between the EU and the newmembers or candidate countries is most intense. Finally, the Project favours the establishment of a macroperspective on processes in the domain of economic culture that transcends the level of individual opinionsand values.

5 In the frame of the project, this key concept was rather loosely defined as follows: By socio-economic culture, we mean not only individual values, norms, beliefs, habits, lifestyles, attitudes, etc. of


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offering a detailed portrait of a man struggling to bring his dreams to reality underharsh circumstances, the informants often very open and personal narratives bring tolight frequent discrepancies between values, attitudes, and described or observed

behaviour. Such discrepancies raise the issue of whether research based exclusively

on the study of attitudes, or even norms and values, can supply all the elements neededfor the understanding of actual processes and individual and collective activities inthe domain of economy. The questioning of such research procedures becomes all themore pertinent in a transitional, rapidly changing social and economic context,characterised by lingering state capitalism, conquering predatory capital accumulation,

semi-functional legal system, agricultural policy breakdown, and rampant corruption.The acquiring of detailed local knowledge that actors really use to orient themselves,and do the things they want to in the context of intensive political and socialtransformation, substantiated by an understanding of the actual roles that suchknowledge plays in the success or failure of their actions, can correct the often abstract

and static pictures supplied by approaches that keep their focus on national orprofessional cultures, that is, on the average tendency to respond among the membersof a given group or culture as Hofstede would say. What is argued here is not that thestudy of individuals should completely substitute study at the national or comparativelevels, but rather that more reflection is needed on the ways in which low levelknowledge can be creatively integrated in the national and comparative levels.

1. PORTRAIT OF THE INTERVIEWEE AS AN AGRICULTURALMANAGER AND ENTREPRENEUR6

Though the case that will be presented focuses on the professional fate of onerather exceptional individual, it is hoped here that it also sheds light on a number of

problems that are crucially important for the understanding of the functioning ofcontemporary Serbian economy, agriculture, and socio-economic culture:

the economic and social actors, but also institutional arrangements, policies and scientific concepts, in

which these elements of culture are embedded. Because of their interdependence, certain elements ofpolitical culture cannot be ignored in discussing socio-economic culture (cf. corruption, solidarity, etc.).Using the term socio-economic culture in the singular does not mean ignoring the huge differencesbetween the cultures of the individual countries in Eastern Europe. Similarly, the binary opposition ofEastern and Western cultures will be frequently challenged in the proposal. See the Project proposalAfter the Accession 2002.

6 For an inspiring and instructive review of crucial topics in the study of post-socialist rural transition,see Swain 2000. For a collective sociological portrait of entrepreneurs in Serbia, see Boli 1997-1998:3-35. The difference between managers and entrepreneurs is taken here to have practical and theoreticalimplications. Contrary to managers, who operate under conditions and with resources known andcontrollable in advance, entrepreneurship is here defined, following Sahlman and Stevenson as a way ofmanaging that involves pursuing opportunity without regard to the resources currently controlled.Entrepreneurs identify opportunities, assemble required resources, implement a practical action plan,and harvest the reward in a timely, flexible way (cited after: Verheul et al. 2001: 4).

Slobodan NaumovicIts hard for chicks to take to the sky! ...


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- The lost generation effect, that is, the partially wasted economic potential ofthe relatively young generations of well educated, Europe-compatible managerialand entrepreneurial elites from the eighties;

- The alternative arena effect, or the potential importance of well educated and

experienced professionals, whose established careers were ruined during the breakdownof Serbian economy, for the development of a new brand of small scale, but possiblyvery effective farmer-type agriculture or medium scale agro-businesses in Serbia;

- The oscillation effect, that is, the fact that even educated, experienced andWestern-oriented local entrepreneurs have to resort at times to the timely, traditional

subsistence strategies of family work/exploitation in the absence of legal andinstitutional surroundings, as well as credit opportunities favourable to theestablishment of viable businesses;

- The worse, the better effect, or the unintended advantages of agriculturaldecline and extensification for the potential transformation of Serbian agriculture

through the introduction of sustainable and organic types of production that are labourintensive and low costing, while supplying highly valued products;

- The parallel tracks effect, or the vital importance of devising new types ofagricultural and credit policies that will find ways of aiding, protecting and creditingboth the emerging farmer-type agricultural entrepreneurs who will eventually spearheadthe production of new goods and introduce new technologies capable of meeting evermore strict standards of European markets, as well as the old, still dominant type of

peasant subsistence agriculture that supplies its small surplus production to the marketat low prices, thereby protecting the standard of living of other impoverished socialstrata;

- The hidden treasure effect, or the domains of agricultural production in Serbiafor which there exists a credible interest of Western partners prepared for capitalinvestments;

- The missing link effect, or the crucial role that prospective entrepreneursaccord to substantial legal, institutional, policy and banking reforms for the creationof a businesses-friendly environment;

- The burden of professional routine effect, or the unexpected difficulties thatwell established professionals face when attempting to assume new roles, especiallyentrepreneurial ones, in a radically changed economic environment;

- Finally, the overestimated factor effect, or the need to re-examine the relative

importance of relatively static factors, like national socio economic cultures, in theanalysis of complex dynamic processes, like economic transitions and supranationalintegrations, and to redirect attention to legal and institutional transformations whichcan create preconditions for actual cultural change.

1.1. Tell me about your childhood

Milutin, the principal informant, was born in 1957 into a family living in asmall house in an old, village-like quarter of Novi Beograd, the grand socialist dormitorybuilt after WWII on dried-up swamps between the rivers Sava and Danube. His parents,


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who both moved from their villages to Belgrade, worked as technicians in a largeagricultural machine factory. He had a troubled but colourful childhood, and stillsavours the days when he wondered through the neighbourhood yards freely, or when

his father took him to the river on fishing hikes. It was then that he developed a liking

for living in a house on the ground, surrounded by trees and animals. After hisparents divorced, he and his sister were supported by their mother from a single salary,moving from one rented flat to the other. As he put it, during these years they hadeverything, but not much of it.

As a very good pupil, he had a wide range of opportunities for study, but his

mind was set when he learned that there was a department where one could learnabout fish and fishing. With time, his interests widened, but the animal world remaineda priority. He graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Agriculture in 1983, obtainingthe title of engineer of cattle-breeding.

1.2. The good old, bad old days, or on doing businessduring the beginning of the end

Being a very good student who could speak two foreign languages fluently, hewas offered a job in the agro-veterinary department of a leading Serbian chemicalexport-import company immediately upon graduation. He remained in the companyfrom 1983 to 1992, rising to the post of leading manager of the department, with a

yearly turnover exceeding ten million DM. Among other assignments during that period,he was responsible for the intensive business cooperation with the agro-vet divisionof one of the greatest German chemical concerns at that time. While in the company,

Milutin acquired a large and versatile professional experience, and an in-depthknowledge of Western European, and in particular German business milieus.

We were orientated mostly towards the West. Western standards and western

technologies were as clear as day to us. The West significantly influenced our

profession We did not represent a typically East European country because

we started taking advantage of western know-how, genetics, technology, and

mechanization

He perfected his knowledge and skills during several business crash courses attop-ranking German institutions, basically covering professional know-how, commu-

nication skills, marketing approaches, and language skills. There was also much to belearned about various European cuisines, wines, and restaurant culture in general, aswell as about vital additional business skills, like drinking-and-not-getting-drunk whilememorising important information, and taking care not to reveal professional secrets7 .He thus gained ease and self-confidence, and sharpened his business intuition.Opportunities to glimpse the other side of Western professionalism, or should one say

7 The practical aspects of managerial culture(s), the actual field know-how and the conceptualschemes that go with it, are systematically neglected by the value-centered studies, much to the detriment

of our understanding of the real functioning of specific socio-economic cultures.



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socio-economic culture, also appeared. The lessons ranged from the simple, legallydubious but economically convenient practice of asking for good bills, all the wayto complex strategies of tax evasion.

Serious cultural differences existed between us For example, I also learnedabout corruption only after I started working for them (the German companies,

S.N.). For the first time in my life, I heard from a manager: Ask the waiter to

give you a good bill. What is a good bill? If the bill is 450 DM, let the

waiter write you a bill on the sum of 1,600 DM, said the manager. I was then 27

or 28 years old. This is how I bumped into corruption. My salary at that time

was solid: 1,000 or 1,100 DM per month. They had about 15,000 DM per month

and still were cheating their companies regularly

Therefore, it might be possible to speculate that as a determinant of economicbehaviour the professional culture(s) into which one is socialized during his/her career

are at least as important, if not more so, than the national socio-economic culture intowhich one is initiated through primary socialisation. The self-perception of being amanager who can operate on an equal basis with his Western counterparts, and theidealisation of his own professional milieu as a niche of orderliness, organization, andstrict work ethic have never left our informant.

Apart from stressing the importance of professional culture(s), this case also

points to the fact that the acquiring of professional skills during a specific historicalperiod imprints certain generations with an ethos characteristic of that period. Thus,while the informant was very well aware of the worsening economic crisis that was

making itself more and more visible, he is not the only one who still remembers theeighties as the golden years, during which, at least in the domain of agro-business,Yugoslav firms could at least pretend to be dealing with Western European ones on amore or less equal basis, and during which there were still real opportunities for

professional and economic growth8 .

When I started to work the complete accumulation of the Agro-vet division

amounted to 130,000 Dinars a year. In six years, that amount went up to more

than 10 million DM. I intensely contributed to that result Since I had the

opportunity to take part in East European conferences between 1983 and 1992

I declare with responsibility that we were, at least from the point of view of

animal production, the most developed country in that area of Eastern Europe(having in mind the USSR of that time, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,

Romania, Bulgaria) We were unapproachable and they were simply moving

slowly, at least ten years behind our back At that time, we had extensive

export, in the first place of chicken, to the Middle East, the USSR, export of

8 For a radically different, caustic view of the economic logic of Yugoslav socialism in its terminalphase, based on a detailed case study of one of the prides of Serbian and Yugoslav socialist economy,the giant metallurgical kombinat at Smederevo, see Palairet 1997. The discrepancy between the goldenage and decline perspectives can also be seen as reflecting the often inversed fates of the export-import and production oriented firms in Serbia and Yugoslavia.


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beef to Greece, Great Britain the cost of Serbian beef in Thessalonica was

40% higher than of beef from most other parts of the world because of its top

quality Yugoslavia had clear advantages, extremely large presentations at

agricultural fairs, at regional consultations, annual symposia

At that time, we still thought that we could catch up with Austria in two, three

years. Such was the conception of the team I worked in. We were not only young

and aggressive, we were successful as well.

From the economic point of view, the period between 1980 and 1990 represented

a golden age when our currency was still partially convertible. Our economy

was relatively functional at that period, at least as far as agriculture and

agribusiness are concerned Therefore I personally look upon that period as

a positive one

In the harsh times that were soon to follow, the rather specific parcel of

professional skills and knowledge that the informant acquired during the golden yearsparadoxically proved to be both an asset and a liability.

1.3. Manager into peasant, or on the consequences

of serbias economy of destruction

In the early nineties, as the economic and political situation rapidly deteriorated,

and the wars and sanctions blocked international cooperation and trade, Milutinscompany all but collapsed. He decided to leave it, instead of waiting passively to besent on a prolonged vacation with no salary, as was happening to other colleagues

who, like him, lacked adequate political backing9 .

Economic sanctions against our country were imposed in 1992 It was painful.

When you wanted to trade with a foreign company you had to smuggle money

in bags, to meet the people in Hungary The situation of my institution rapidly

worsened, it could not carry on business, the agricultural segment of my firm

went on with some its activities, but the whole division of organic and inorganic

chemistry, of tires and trade vehicles stopped working, while salaries

dramatically decreased. At the beginning of October 1991 my salary was between

1,100 and 1,200, and the stimulation was up to 2,000 DM. It fell down by

September 1992 to only 50 or 60 DM per month, and continued to drop. My

home savings melted away, practically disappeared. The spring of 1992 was

extremely hard; business was almost completely interrupted workers were

sent to their homes on unpaid or paid vacations with 10 or 15 DM a month...

That moment marked a turning point in the life of the whole society.

9 The best introduction to the complex problem of the interrelation of economic and political factorson the global and local levels, and of their at times paradoxical effects on the fate of the YugoslavFederation was supplied by Woodward 1997, in particular in the first five chapters. For penetratinginsights into the logic of economic decline of Serbia and Yugoslavia during the nineties see Lazi 1994.



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As production oriented companies targeting domestic markets had at least somechances of surviving, he accepted the offer to become the director of the poultryproduction branch of a well known agro-kombinat from Vojvodina. He thus had the

opportunity to perfect his knowledge of the technology of a specific type of production.

As the production facilities were scattered all over Serbia, including Kosovo, he learnedthe hard way about tremendous differences in professional knowledge, work ethicand ways of doing things in what was supposed to be a single economic, administrativeand political entity. He quickly found out that knowledge, determination and goodwill could hardly counter malignant general trends that were rapidly spreading in the

society in general, and in the economic sector in particular. General loss of motivationresulting in poor work results, coupled with cynical large scale plundering strategiesdevised by politically protected individuals, soon ate up whole production units of thecompany10.

The new businesspersons, which appeared after Miloevi came to power,succeded with bribes of 1,000 or 2,000 DM to obtain goods worth 200,000 or300,000 DM, and even millions. The active stuff, the state owned capital was

simply vanishing The official leaders of production were big social firms, butwe managed to survive owing to small, invisible farms, untouched by suchsiphoning strategies. They were a strategic reserve. In that domain, looting

and inflation were helpless

Backed by some workers, Milutin tried to resist these tendencies, and evenfight some of the perpetrators, only to learn that friends from above meant morethan support from below. After numerous orchestrated public campaigns of personal

discrediting, several threats to his life, and desertion by many of those whose interestshe was principally defending, Milutin decided that his familys and his own wellbeingmeant more to him than what was clearly becoming a struggle against the windmills.

Disgusted and tired, Milutin decided to leave the big city, which for him hadbecome the symbol of corruption and moral decay, and make true his one time dreamof living in his own house in a village by the river. He first bought a parcel of land, andtried rather unsuccessfully to set up a small corn production. He then persuaded hismother to sell her flat in the city, and they bought a small house with an additionalstretch of land in a village in Srem, a historical region of Vojvodina. The house remains

his mothers property, while both parcels of land and the objects built on them belong

to him.Having previously mastered the technology of egg and poultry meat production,

Milutin decided to abandon working the land, and set up his own poultry productionbusiness. However, with no fresh capital, as the family savings were already depleted

10 For a general introduction to the depressing topic of corruption in Serbia, see Begovi and Simin.d.. Similar politically backed rent-seeking and asset-scraping strategies are analysed in the Bulgariancontext in Tchalakov 2003: in particular 3-4. A detailed and very instructive assessment of factors thatdetermine competitiveness of agricultural producers and food processing enterprises in Bulgaria is offered

in Vladimirov 2003.


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by the loss of fresh income and rampant inflation, and as the collapsing state saw nointerest in crediting small scale producers, the venture came to be much more difficultthan originally planned. He had to wok hard to adapt the old house, and build two new

production objects largely by himself, with help coming in only from family members.

The years between 1992 and 2002 were truly very difficult when I invest

10,000 DM, raise 2,000 chickens, sell them very successfully, get back the

invested capital in Dinars, and try to change back that amount in the black

market I find out that I can buy back 10,000 DM at the very best, and usually

less, although I spent 60 days on raising the chicks, and sometimes additionally

paid primary and manufacturing components, and 1 or 2 workers. It happened

to many other producers as well. On the other hand, the black-marketers got

back at least 15,000 DM for 10,000 DM invested in petrol, and usually more

than double. The consequences were that small-scale producers depending on

small cycles somehow remained alive, while most of the bigger ones were ruinedfinancially

By the end of the nineties, after years of sweating and freezing round the clock,and not a single day of holiday, the results could hardly match the original intentionand expectations. Instead of developing into a medium scale advanced farmingproduction he dreamed of, his tireless efforts managed nothing else but to turn his

whole family into a peasant subsistence production unit, selling eggs and poultry toneighbours, relatives, and local market customers, with relatively infrequent andunreliable larger commands as the only reward one could hope for.

1.4. How sustainable is a sustainable agriculture projectin reformist serbia, or why do (some) entrepreneurs

fail in the transitional economy?

Great expectations were stirred again in the year 2000 by the Belgrade OctoberRevolution11 . Hopes were high, and so was enthusiasm. A new era was dawning, orso the people thought. Unfortunately, various political brands of democrats were soonbusy quarrelling over who was the veritable reformer, and who should thus take onthe burden of numerous responsibilities, and with it all the spoils of unrestrained

power. It became obvious that regimes can indeed be changed overnight, but not humancharacters, passions and weaknesses. Undeniable progress was made in a number of keysectors, mostly in the domains of macroeconomic reforms, monetary policy, bankingreform, legal reform and diplomacy12 . Donations and credits started pouring in, thoughhardly reaching either promised or expected levels. On the other hand, lingering Milo-

11 For a well argued assessment of the state of Serbian economy which was inherited by the reformistsfrom the previous regime, see Arandarenko 2000.

12 On the debates focusing the importance of legal systems for economic development, see Perry

2002: 282-307.



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evi-style state capitalism, fragments of command economy, institutional inefficiency,legal paralysis, political protectionism and, worst of all, large scale corruption, thistime related principally, but not solely to the process of privatisation, heavily compromised

all other positive developments.

The present-day ruling circles are ashamed of confessing their incapability.

When someone advises his peasants not to produce wheat what can it mean?

It is some kind of indifference. Reality is very rough, very brutal, and completely

different from what it was 20 years ago. On the other side, legal regulations

and the style of administrative thinking did not significantly change;

administration did not largely change, it remained the same. On the one hand,

you have the alleged paradise in legislation, and on the other real hell on Earth.

The much publicized instruction of people to cultivate soybeans instead of wheat

requires modern mechanization, a series of benefits like tax reduction or

exemption from tax, even considerable sums of money in advance, favourablecredits Promises are not kept, the needed frames do not exist, but people are

advised to produce industry plants instead of wheat. It makes no difference to

them whether farmers will be ruined They apparently think that we can import

everything we lack. Are they aware of the fact that our population could be

hungry tomorrow?

If you do not start as producer, you cannot fight your way. Only production

creates new value trade is babbling, it does not create new values, banknotes

are paper, and goods are goods, they have real value, they can satisfy some

needs.

Some people here seriously seem not to be in order because the system of values

has been reallocated, because things have decades long been solved in politics

and not in production and economy. In the normal world things are differently

treated. The real bosses are those who produce and create, and not those who

sell junk computers

In our country, things have no chances of getting better while the best-developed

field isfor selling. Because you are engaged in production, you end up being a

fool.

Believing that the long expected moment to start a serious production had finallyarrived, Milutin contacted in the beginning of 2002 his one time professionalacquaintance and friend, the owner and general manager of a chain of agro-businesses

from Germany, and arranged a professional meeting with him on one of his contractorfarms in Hungary. He was also contacted by two friends (an unemployed precisionmechanic and a taxi driver with extensive experience in the grey economy, principallydealing with detergents and fruit juices) who were willing to join forces. His initiativewas an attempt of economic take-off from the frugal level ofsubsistence production


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The unexpected levels of inefficiency and corruption, and even more so therenewed political instability in Serbia, made the German partner (and German banksand insurance companies as well) hesitant, and the whole project became dependant

on their interpretation of political and institutional developments in Serbia. That meant

that the potential financial and technological engine of the venture was detached evenbefore the actual journey started, and that the train from that moment onwards had torun on the feeble thrust supplied by the previously existing family business.

1.5. The secrets of (some) transitional entrepreneurs,

Or on the organisation of the family business14

The heart of the business venture, the family production unit, consisted ofMilutin, his mother, his wife, his two daughters, and a cousin, a retired army officerwho came to live on the estate in the year 2000. The family subsistence strategy was

the only possible mechanism of preserving the production in the harsh yearscharacterised by sanctions and hyperinflation, as a permanent hired workforce andrelated monetary loss would have suffocated it economically15 . For almost a decade,the venture remained legally in the grey zone.

As was stated above, early in 2003 the family venture turned into a short-livedorganic agro-business, which functioned legally till the end of 2004. It was registeredas a four partner mixed (foreign and domestic) shareholder society with limitedresponsibility. Apart from Milutin, the local company members were S.S. and Z.Z.(both of whom left the company before the end of 2004), while M.M. represented theforeign partner and owner of 49% of the companys rather symbolic founding capital.

While the operating plan was precisely laid down on a joint meeting of its foundingmembers in Hungary, it soon became clear that the future of the joint venture woulddepend mostly on the political, economic and legal outcomes of the political strugglesraging in Serbia at that time, as well as on the entrepreneurial talents of the Serbianpartners.

Actual working tasks were more or less evenly distributed among the familymembers, but there were specialised and generalised tasks. The informant wasconstantly switching between the roles of entrepreneur, manager and principal workforce. It was his exclusive task to prepare the poultry food, administer medicineswhen needed, slaughter fully grown up chicks and turkeys, and organise the veterinary

14 The full version of this case study incorporates detailed descriptions of the facilities and productioncycles, but they had to be omitted here due to restricted space. For a clarification of the general trends inSerbian agriculture and agribusinesse see: Bogdanov 2002, and in particular the very detailed Chapter11. Agriculture, in: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Breaking with the Past: The Path to Stability andGrowth. Volume I: The Economic, Social andInstitutional Reform Agenda (2001). For a concise, butdevastating critique of the consequences of Miloevis economy in the domain of agriculture see Palairet2001, in particular 6-7. For a broader historical perspective see: Economic modernisation: the agrarianeconomy in Allcock 2000: 100-144.

15 For various survival strategies in post-socialist transition see: Babovi and Cveji 2002; Kuczi1997-1998; or Chevalier 2001.


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control of the meat, but he also participated in all other daily activities. Milutin wasaided by all members of the family, as well as by S.S. in the everyday tasks likefeeding and cleansing, as well as peak activities like preparing and packing of the

meat, and was eventually replaced by them if some of his tasks overlapped. Interestingly,

it was S.S.s exclusive duty to find and contract larger customers and arrange thedeliveries to them, and to organise the transportation of meat to other smaller customers.S.S. was relying on the extensive networks built up during the time when he wasengaged by his grey zone detergent and fruit juice businesses, and on theacquaintances and contacts that he developed as a taxi driver. Here, one might reflect

on the advantages of grey zone down-to-earth entrepreneurial experience overhighflying management skills from a different era. Before she found a job, Milutinswife was also engaged as a saleswoman on the rented market stands. Depending ontheir individual obligations, family members also carried and distributed smaller packsof meat to individual customers, primarily friends, neighbours, or distant relatives.

All members helped jointly during the end of the cycle, when the pressure was mostintensive.

Finances were arguably the most complex issue of the venture. Before the firmwas registered, the family budget and the business funds were practically not separated.This means that family resources, however scarce, were always there to finance businessundertakings (new production cycle, other investments in machinery, etc.), but evenmore importantly, that business profits were considered as family net income, and

used for family consumption. After the firm was registered, the financial logic becameeven more complex. However, even before the registration of the firm, there wereinteresting traits related to the distribution of funds. Namely, though the informants

mother was working intensively on the estate (not only on farm related tasks, but alsoon the maintenance of the house, the regulation of administration-related tasks thatdemand time consuming trips to the capital etc.), was taking care of most of the house-

related additional expenses (electricity bills etc.), and was contributing to the budgetfrom her pension, she never directly participated in the share of the profit. The relativealso helped intensively, and contributed to the business fund by making available halfof the sum of his pension, but he was also not included directly in the profit sharing. Ina way, Milutins nuclear family was being helped both non-financially and financiallyby his mother and his relative, even though they all lived and worked together under a

single roof much like in a traditional extended family or zadruga. In other words,

apart from the family business exploiting the family (and the other way round),Milutins nuclear family was additionally exploiting other members of the extendedfamily, or more precisely, of the household.

Another peculiarity had to do with the fact that from the moment he resignedfrom his second job, Milutin remained the only grown-up who did not receive a

permanent salary or pension. Following a feminine strategy comparable to the onepractised by Milutins mother16 , from the moment she found employment his wife

16 While the informants mother was indeed contributing to the business fund, she was in fact helping

directly her son through financing what she saw as his venture, therefore doing the same thing as his wife,



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generally used her salary to meet the needs of her daughters, and of her parents andrelatives in Montenegro, as well as her own needs, and did not contribute directly tothe business fund. In other words, she used her salary a form of exclusive personal-

disposition fund principally not integrated into the interconnected family and business

funds. As was hinted, after the firm got registered the logic of sharing and consumptionchanged again. The net income of the business had to be divided among the partners(at first among the three of them, and later between Milutin and S.S., as the third localpartner left, while the foreign partner did not want to participate into the smallproduction cycles and was therefore not entitled to a share of the income) according

to the percentage of capital invested into the production cycle. As the family was stillthe main workforce behind the joint business (S.S. was less and less capable of meetinghis obligations on the farm due to overlapping with his other activities), it was thereforedirectly contributing to the profit of the other partner(s). It was expected that thefamily work would be reimbursed by positive effects of S.S.s marketing and distributive

skills, and by the part of the transportation costs which he covered himself. However,the extent of family exploitation was at times actually increasing, instead of decreasing.This was particularly true in cases when something went wrong like when an incurableform of poultry sickness stroke twice in the year 2003. Due to the fact that health-protection remained Milutins exclusive responsibility, and as the business remainedwithout any insurance, the considerable losses were directly transferred onto the familybudget.

In the end, owing to the described chain of bureaucratic and political setbacks,as well as to the inherent economic instability of a venture that brought together strictlyprofit seeking partners and a family production unit tailored for a subsistence

production, the plan to set up an organic export-oriented production never fullymaterialized. Several larger cycles for the domestic market local butchers andBelgrade restaurants, together with the usual small scale production for auto-

consumption and the circle of friends and relatives were the only real results of thejoint venture during 2003 and 2004. By the end of 2004 both local partners had alreadyleft the business, one to fully return to taxiing and jobs in the grey zone, the other towork as a high tech precision mechanic for a medical equipment maintenance firm inSwitzerland. The German partner decided to withdraw from Serbia for the time being.In the beginning of 2005, the informant finally decided to let go of his entrepreneurial

adventures, and return to his true vocation of salaried manager. This time he enrolled

in a medium size, rapidly expanding private firm in the agro-veterinary and fodderbusinesses. At present he is busy renewing the professional contacts and recapturingthe markets that he abandoned more than a decade ago, while eying up additional

who was spending her funds mostly on her daughters and relatives. The anthropologist Andrei Simiproposed a seductive culturalist explanation of such behavior: The power of this maternal image isrooted in moral superiority derived from self-abnegation and suffering phrased in a mothers devotion tothe well-being of her children at the expense of other forms of self-realization. In this way, maternalsacrifice provides the keystone for the support of a structure of guilt on the part of children , especiallysons, assuring the perpetuation of a mothers influence and power throughout her lifetime. See Simi

1999: 26.


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Well devised and functioning legal and institutional frameworks are crucial forthe satisfactory functioning of an economy;

One should abide to the law, if the law is perceivable as just, and if it is not

explicitly countering ones legitimate and justifiable long term interests;

Because economic actors tend to calculate their losses and gains as far as re-specting the law is concerned, if the losses grossly outweigh the gains, manywill tend to breach the law even if they do not have criminal intentions;

However, massive breaching of the law works against the long term interests ofall, including those of the perpetrators;

Therefore, legislation that is unjust to the interests of many, works against theinterests of all in the long run, and thus against its own chances of being respected;

Out of that reason, legislation should be maximally adapted to the needs of thoseengaged in the particular activities that it regulates, if it is to be both useful andrespected;

In the Serbian case this is evidently not so, which explains why so many peopledecide to operate outside of legal frames, and why society in general continuesbeing at a loss.

As far as his personal philosophy of economy is concerned, he believes that:

All resources of interest to man are limited, or prone to regeneration only to acertain degree, therefore economic actors must respect the characteristics and

restraints of the domain in which they are operating, in order to preserve it bothfor other actors, and for their own future benefits;

Only productive work, material or intellectual, creates real values and eco-

nomically sound profit on the long run; As productive work is devaluated in Serbia, endogenous forces that could lead

the economy out of its present crisis are blocked, and what is resulting is pillage

and destruction of natural, industrial and human resources.

Finally, as far as the relationship between economic culture and economicbehaviour is concerned, he considers that:

Local (he oscillates between Yugoslav and Serbian) economic cultures (values,norms, beliefs, modes of behaviour, instrumental knowledge and know-how,

etc.) ontologically exist, and are active factors in the shaping of social realities,

but are also changeable by those very realities, both in the sense of beinghistorically perfectible and/or degradable, and of being susceptible to influencesfrom other cultural settings;

Individual thought and behaviour never fully replicates locally upheld culturalpatterns, as elements of a given culture are never learned, understood, nor

respected by all members of a community in the same manner or to the samedegree, and are often, in cases like his own, contaminated by external culturalinfluences;

People generally, and economic actors such as entrepreneurs in particular, behaveaccording to their personal understanding of the setting in which they find


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themselves, and pursue their interests using acquired knowledge and existingcultural baggage as best fits their goals, that is they tend to behave more or lessrationally, and out of that reason have the potential to amend or transcend

internalised cultural norms;

Large entities like nations are far too complex and heterogeneous, which makesthe effort to describe the behaviour of those who constitute them by usingencompassing concepts like national socio-economic culture doomed to failure.

What emerges behind this set of ideas is the image of a self centred, individualist,

rational and materialist person, firmly respecting a somewhat self-made, but logicaland ethically founded system of values. Culture seems to play only a very restrictedrole as a determining factor of economic behaviour in this personal framework. Thecapacity for production, but also the whole national infrastructure of laws, policies,institutions, and bureaucracies emerge as the key determinants of economic success

or failure in this frame. However, he sees his chances of success in contemporarySerbia as severely restricted by inadequate legal, institutional and policy frames, andeven more so by widespread corruption. In that sense, politics, law and institutionalframes are viewed as considerably more powerful factors than culture. Because ofwitnessing social reality as it smashes forcefully into the face of publicly upheld culturalvalues and norms, the informant is even more reluctant to accord to culture the statusof uncaused cause. In consequence, he views culture at best as a useful resource, and

at worst as a good topic for futile discussions.

2.2. Views from outside: enter culture, as it seems,

but is it a wild beast or a tamed shrew?

Should we agree with the presented self-perception of the actor as a rational

agent more or less free from the bonds of culture, and tied down only by the webs ofcorruption, ignorance, ineptitude, and malevolent social engineering? Should this anti-culturalist outlook itself be explained as an element of a certain professional culture,or of a mix of various types of such cultures, say of inherently rationalist managerialand entrepreneurial cultures? Or should we follow the track opened by a number ofobservable cracks in the presented outlook and discrepancies between the frame and

actual behaviour, and see the personal frame as an understandable rationalisation, as a

conscious or unconscious distortion that veils the cultural and psychological realitieslurking behind it?

Namely, the most interesting aspects of the presented insider view are neitherits elaborate character and apparent coherence and neatness, nor its critical wit. Rather,it is the cracks in the belief system itself, as well as the discrepancies between

proclaimed values and actual behaviour, both of which seem hardly visible to theinformant, that open up really interesting questions. Thus, a very pronouncedindividualism, of which the informant is undoubtedly proud, seems to contradict hisperceivable proneness to collectivist and familialistic solutions, and his reliance onthe logic of social networking. A demonstrably strong internal locus of control seems



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not to be in perfect tune with the informants narratives that relate the failure of hisventure solely with inadequate legal frames and corrupt social surrounding. Verbalmachismo that often surfaced during the interviews seems to be contradicted (at least

superficially) by a readiness to rely on motherly help even at a mature age. It is

questionable why anti-corruption litanies, so abundantly voiced, should go hand inhand so easily with a tolerance for prolonged activities in the grey zone. Finally, thesubstantial issue of the difference between professional cultures seems to be raised bythe discrepancy between a highly successful managerial career and a failedentrepreneurial one. Because of revealing deficiencies in the informants conscious

and voluntary control of thought and action, the cracks and discrepancies point tosome of the domains where the work of economic and professional cultures might bemost obvious. They also raise the more fundamental problem of the nature of culturalcausation.

Even if the issue of cracks and discrepancies is put aside for the moment, there

is enough material for a serious debate. Namely, to culturalist eyes there might bemore to what was described up to now than just rational coping with hardships usingwhat-is-at-hand. If such a frame is adopted, a number of potential traits of socio-economic culture become recognisable in previously described forms of practicalbehaviour, though understandably to different degrees:

- The multi-generational extended family structure doubling as a production and

consumption unit;- The readiness of family members and kinsfolk to work intensively for no practical

financial remuneration apart from housing, food and clothing, characteristic of

a non-monetarised, peasant subsistence type of economy;- The preserving of special ties linking mothers to their adult, and in particular

male offspring, and the propensity for demonstratively self-sacrificial behaviour

on behalf of the mothers, coupled with tolerance and mild dependency on theside of the sons, which is complemented by an exaggerated and often theatricalmachismo, described together as cryptomatriarchy by some authors17 ;

- The instrumentalisation of friendship and neighbourhood ties, that is, the use ofexisting inherently non-economic relationships for the mutual advancement ofeconomic interests;

- The relative disregard of existing legal and fiscal frames, and of the generalized

interests of the state and society as such, and the concentration of primary loyaltyon the family, kinship, or local networks.

The existence of these traits might be seen as a proof that, deep beneath theself-deluding anti-culturalist rationalisations of the informant, there looms an enduring

17 Criptomatriarchy is a term used by the anthropologist Andrei Simi to describe the paradoxicalcultural and psychological dynamic that allows for older women among the South Slavs to occupyinfluential and authoritative positions in their families, despite of a cultural setting stressing patrilinearity,patrilocality, and male dominance (Simi 1999: 15).


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core of Serbian socio-economic culture. Those who would agree are not few, at leastamong contemporary Serbian scholars. In a recent empirical analysis of the influenceof national culture on organizational subcultures and leadership styles, Duan Mojipoints to the fact that most researchers have noted that Serbian national culture favors

autocratic managerial behavior against democratic or participative leadership style(Moji 2004: 22). The author then proposes the following explanation:

This kind of behavior most probably comes from the same source asauthoritarianism syndrome of the authoritarian-traditionalist character or

mentality. This syndrome originates from the traditional patriarchal saturatedculture (Rot and Havelka 1973). Empirical studies of Yugoslav sociologistsshowed that national culture here belongs to a group ofpre-industrial cultures(Obradovic 1982). Such cultures are based on an implicit and subconsciousImage of Limited Good (Foster 1965). By Image of Limited Good Foster

means that areas of peasant behavior are patterned in such fashion as to suggestthat peasants view their social, economic, and natural universes their totalenvironment as one in which all of the desired things in life such as land,wealth, health, friendship and love, manliness and honor, respect and status,power and influence, security and safety, exist in finite quantity and always inshort supply, as far as the peasant is concerned (Moji 2004: 22).

In this telling example of a strong culturalist position, implicit and subconsciousbeliefs characteristic of peasant culture(s) are taken to explain the behaviour of modernSerbian managers. While the explanatory logic might seem acceptable once the

premises are taken for granted (values guide behaviour), when questioned theexplanation reveals its fragile nature. First, how and why do ideas and valuescharacteristic of a peasant culture persist so stubbornly among contemporary educated

urbanite managers? Second, what is the proof that those specific ideas do really motivatethe actors, apart from the actors verbalised preference for certain forms of behaviour,which, it is presupposed, are caused by those very ideas? Perhaps out of that reason,alternatives to strictly culturalist explanations can be found even among those whoaccept general culturalist assumptions. In an intriguing positional U-turn, the authorof the previous passage, commenting the findings of his research according to which

Serbian managers had higher scores on Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance and

Collectivism than non-managers, rather liberally reaches for strong versions ofcontextualism and instrumentalism:

Such socio-economic surrounding gave managers from all types of Serbianenterprises (especially social and state-owned) almost absolute power over

all resources of the enterprise (including employees). This situation gave themmany opportunities for corruption, autocratic behavior and almost opendevastation of social capital in favor of their personal interest. Therefore, whatthey wanted most of all was to keep this situation going on as long as possible.That is why they scored high on Power Distance (to continue being powerful



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autocrats), high on Uncertainty Avoidance (to avoid any change of an idealsituation) and high on Collectivism (to hide their personal interests behindthe collectivistic orientation) (Moji 2004: 23).

Reflecting some time ago on the complexities of culture change in ex-Yugoslavia,the anthropologist Andrei Simi proposed the following thick description, whichrephrases the dilemma that was just presented:

Thus, the system of intense reciprocal ties linking family members and kin (and

by extension of the same principle, fictive kin and close friends) continues toprovide the individual in todays Yugoslavia with what is probably his or hermost vital resource in the struggle for success or simple survival. In this respect,many educated Yugoslavs interested in the rapid modernization of their countryview this fixation on kinship and personal relationships as a kind of national

vice inhibiting the development of more rational (in the Weberian sense), large-scale social and economic institutions.

In this condensed passage we encounter local modernists, who obviously defenda strong version of culturalism (culture inhibits development), as they castigate(national vice) forms of behaviour that they interpret as cultural entrapment, as wellas an ambiguous anthropologist who seems to open up a different perspective, seeing

in culture the most vital resource for individual success or survival. Here, the frameturns once again from using culture to explain human thought and/or behaviour (strongversion of culturalism), all the way to looking for motives and factors that can explain

the persistence or change of cultural forms. What are then the arguments in favour ofthe second option? Speaking about the position of anthropology among the powersas well as among other disciplines, Eric Wolf sketched the key traits of a re-emerginginstrumentalist, actor-oriented, contextualist, and reality-observing approach, which

according to him offers a viable alternative to stronger versions of culturalism andother nomothetic abstractions:

We are now one of the very few remaining observational sciences. Observationhas allowed us to separate norms from behavior and to see the relation betweenthe two as problematic. This makes us professionally suspicious of nomothetic

abstractions about what people do, whether these are offered by informants,erected by social scientists, or asserted to be the case for all human beingseverywhere. Studying Bakweri or Melpa gave us a lively sense that thingscould always be different, and causes us to beware of well-intended generalisingschemes that are not grounded in specified populations in defined circumstances.We are thus more likely to be critics than architects of grand theory. This often

assigns to us the unwelcome yet vitally needed role of questioning the certaintiesof others, both social scientists and policy makers.

We are able, furthermore, to watch how people behave as they use normative

elements of their culture in ongoing involvements and transactions. This has


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led us to rethink culture, to see it not as a fixed stock of material and symbolic

forms but as repertoires deployed in social action (italics S.N., Wolf 1999:132).

If Wolf is to be trusted, the idea of culture as a repertory of various values,norms and ideas deployable in social action (a resource for, instead of a source of),and the reaffirmation of human potential for agency, taken together orient reflectionin a more rewarding direction for the understanding of economic activity, than doesthe idea of culture as a program that makes human computers work (Hofstedes

programming of the mind). Sceptical anthropologists are not the only ones to rethinkthe explanatory potential of the concept of culture. Reflecting on the resources thatmight be available to small entrepreneurs starting up their businesses in an environmentin which they can not rely on state resources, have no significant private wealth, andface a shortage of preferential loans and other means of support, the Hungarian

economic sociologist Tibor Kuczi noted that:

Given this situation, start up businesses make increasing use of resources that,by origin and nature, are not part of the market economy, such as family labor,assistance of relatives, the work organization of their former places ofemployment, friends, neighbors, and so on (Kuczi 1997-1988: 51).

After going through the full list of cultural traits that Simi would call vitalresources, Kuczi proceeds to explain that:

It is generally known that extra-economic resources exist even in advancedmarket economies, a network and trust organized on an ethnic, regional orprofessional basis is important there, too, and, without these, businesses areunlikely to be successful. Economic sociology has but recently discovered their

importance, it has been barely more than a decade since the still fashionableconcepts ofembeddedness, industrial district, flexible specialization, network,and new competition were introduced. One extremely important factorrecognized by these theories is that economic activity cannot be understood onthe basis of narrow market logic. If we want to interpret the decisions made bythe individual, we must return them to the system of social interactions in the

broad sense of the term (Kuczi 1997-1998: 51-52).

Simis, Wolfs, and Kuczis anti-reductionist, instrumentalist, and contextualist platforms all seem to lend well their arguments to Daniel Chirots recent stronglyphrased critique of crude culturalist determinism in the reflection on Eastern Europeaneconomies:

Insisting that the differences in levels of economic success between variousparts of the post-communist world are related to very deep cultural legaciesmisses the real reasons for them and also makes them seem more permanent



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than they really are. We now know that substantial modernisation can takeplace in three generations, or perhaps even less. Some backward parts of EasternEurope, such as Romania or Bulgaria, for example, have all the elements in

place for rapid modernisation. If Serbia had not been led into a disastrous political

adventure by its misguided intellectuals (who genuinely believed in a separateSerbian mission) and by the Milosevic government, it would have emergedfrom communism no more backward than Poland. The differences in degree ofmodernisation between Romania or Bulgaria, and, say, Hungary or Poland, neednot last more than one or two generations. Similarly, all of post-communist

Europe has the capacity to substantially catch up to Western European levelswell before the end of this new century (Chirot 2002: 7).

Chirots somewhat triumphalist rationalism fits well with Milutins devaluationof culture as a factor that shapes human behaviour. But is this a clear victory? Evidence

supplied by Milutins own case seems to contradict this interpretation. Namely, thedescribed cracks, discrepancies, and inconsistencies seem to speak both against asmooth culturalist stance, and an overzealous anti-culturalist rationalism. Milutin isdefinitely right when he objects to being viewed as a zombie of culture, but that factdoesnt miraculously turn him (and all of us, for that sake) into a consequent Kantianeither, even if he (together with Chirot) might wish to see himself as one.

3. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION: CONTEXTUALISING CULTURE(S)

Most of what has been presented up to now might pass as writing againstculture, if the catching phrase of Abu-Lughod (1991) is to be respected. Ratherparadoxically, some of it was also phrased in the spirit of what the anthropologist

Marshall Sahlins semi-jokingly termed common sense bourgeois realism. Contraryto what Sahlins seems to suppose, it is hoped here that such realism does not amountto a kind of symbolic violence done to other times and other customs (cited after:Li, n.d.: 212). Furthermore, it is clear that Sahlins explicit voicing of culturalism -different cultures, different rationalities (cited after: Li n.d.: 251) does not get fullcredit from the evidence and arguments presented in this case study. This particularly

holds true for his related melodramatic dictum either anthropology (together with its

baggage of culturalism and cultural relativism, and the related monopoly on globalcultural brokering; addition S.N.) or the Tower of Babel (Li n.d.: 227) 18 .

18 For some refreshing culturalist lines by semi-serious anthropologists one could first turn to RichardA. Shweders relativist piece (Shweder 2000), and then go to Marshall Sahlins more complex, but stillsomewhat joking Two or Three Things That I Know About Culture (Sahlins 1999). For a more soberreview of the main arguments developed by critics of the concept of culture in anthropology see Brightman1995. A very thorough review of recent writing against culture is supplied by Brumann 1999 as well.Brumann can also be credited as one of the stronger pens that wrote for culture against the still strongtide of anthropological nihilism.


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However, what seems most substantiated by the evidence presented here is astance of moderate scepticism towards single factor theories, be they part and parcelof culturalist, institutionalist, or of some other scholarly orthodoxy.

The first lesson of this case study, then, is related to the inappropriateness of

single all-encompassing concepts like Eastern European socio-economic culturefor the study of the roles that culture can play in individual behaviour. This caseseems to offer some evidence that it might be useful to include into the analysis ofindividual thought and behaviour a set of concepts of a lower level of generality, likeculture of Yugoslav socialist managers, German (Western European) managerial

culture, culture of transitional entrepreneurs, or Serbian peasant subsistence culture,perhaps even adding to them a temporal frame (of the eighties, nineties), and onlythen to attempt to relate such contextualized types of socio-economic culture to actualforms of individual or group behaviour.

The second lesson stems from the effort to situate reflection on the working of

socio-economic culture in actual circumstances. When the functioning of socio-economic culture(s) is contextualized, linked to actual periods, processes, and persons,then it has to be seen as neither the only, nor the principal factor that can explainobservable behaviour, particularly in rapidly changing political, economic, institutional,and legal settings. In other words, if culture matters, it is only because in a givenperiod some of the conceptions, norms and values that a specific type of culture sustainscan, because of reasons not knowable in advance, conspire with other factors to make

certain forms of thinking and behaviour possible or probable, and others less so. Howactors understand the context in which they are bound to operate seems to be of crucialimportance for a valid explanation of the ways in which they relate to the cultural

resources that are available to them, and deploy them in their behaviour. On the otherhand, this case study also suggests that economic actors are not full bloodied Kantianseither. They use culture, but are also used by culture, and are victims of their own

inconsistencies and incapacities.The third and most important lesson builds on the noted cracks in the informants

narratives, and discrepancies between what was said and what was being done. Thesecracks and discrepancies shed doubts on the presumed congruence between subjectiveviews revealed by questionnaires and actual forms of behaviour, characteristic of theresearch based on culturalist hypotheses. The first problem unveiled by such

discrepancies is related to the nature of the data gathered by questionnaires, namely to

the possibility that what is taken to be a value, norm, belief, orientation, or attitude,could in fact be an opinion, or, eventually, an intentionally misleading answer. Thesecond problem touches on a distinction with which anthropologists are very wellacquainted, namely the difference between ideal or ought to culture and real orordinary culture, and the tendency of respondents to speak about ideal culture in

official answers, and reserve real culture for private talks. The third problem has to dowith the distinction between generalized, or abstract, and specific, or concrete, beliefs.Yes, corruption is bad in principle, but on the other hand, a small gift will enable mymother to get a bed in the hospital quicker. The fourth problem is related the discrepancybetween ideals and interests, and the importance of interests for the relatively rapid



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change of opinions. It certainly is easier to speak about ideals (EU membership, forexample), than to live up to them (to the strict discipline and suffocating competition);when the latter is experienced, the former changes rather quickly (as can be witnessed

by the dropping rate of support to EU membership as the full range of consequences

becomes transparent). Finally, the previous problems together point to the fact thathuman actors have complex, and not necessarily congruent mental frames (deeperlayers of values and norms, more changeable layer of opinions, and context-focussedperceptions of individual interests, all of which influence behaviour to different extentsand in different ways), to which answers to questionnaires are less than a royal road.

If unaddressed, these problems can drastically reduce the probability that knowledgegathered by questionnaires will have explanatory or predictive capacities. In order tounderstand what a certain social actor might really be up to, and how he actually doesit, we will have to simultaneously listen to what the actor has to say, infer what hemight be thinking and why, and carefully observe the ways in which he is behaving.

Only then will we be in the position to correctly assess the actual roles of varioustypes of socio-economic culture in observable forms of social activity.

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Biographical Notes: SLOBODANNAUMOVI (M.A. in Social Anthropology, Ecole des Hautes Etudesen Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, 1992) is an Assistant Professor of Ethnology at Belgrade Univer-

sity, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Ethnology and Anthropology. Areas of specialisation: Eth-

nography of Serbia, Political Anthropology, Visual Anthropology. Recent publications:Gender Rela-

tions in South Eastern Europe: Historical Perspectives on Womanhood and Manhood in 19th and 20th

Century. Zur Kunde Sdosteuropas - band II/33 (Eds.: S.Naumovic, M. Jovanovic), 411. Udruenje za

drutvenu istoriju - ideje 4, Beograd; 2002; Childhood in South East Europe: Historical Perspectives onGrowing Up in the 19th and 20th Century. Zur Kunde Sdosteuropas - band II/28 (Ed.: S.Naumovic, M.

Jovanovic), Belgrade - Graz; 302. Udruenje za drutvenu istoriju - ideje 2, Beograd, 2001;Between theArchives and the Field: A Dialogue on Historical anthropology of the Balkans , with Slobodan Naumovic

and Karl Kaser, 276. Belgrade Graz, 1999.

Address: Belgrade University Faculty of Philosophy Department of Ethnology and Anthropology,

ika Ljubina 18 2, YU 11000 Belgrade.E-mail:[email protected]

Naumovic It s Hard for Chicks to Take to the Sky

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