Modes of Masculinities among the Yugoslav Workforce in Postcolonial Zambia

This contribution explores the non-aligned era labor migration of Yugoslav men to postcolonial Zambia. Based on oral history and archival research conducted in Lusaka and Belgrade, it seeks to provide a gendered account of Yugoslavs negotiating their role as white Europeans in a postcolonial milieu and the ways in which Zambian colleagues understood Yugoslavs to have positioned themselves. Drawing upon contemporary social anthropological research from post-Yugoslav space, I argue that two modes of masculinities were in simultaneous operation and can help to make sense of the tensions inherent in the role of Yugoslav male workers in Zambia. An adventuring young Yugoslav man ( frajer ) might have driven fast, drunk heavily, and boasted about sexual conquests, but according to the motif of the “father,” the same person would also understand himself as a provider, whose responsible, serious, and protective characteristics would be used in assisting Zambians to develop as industrial workers.