“In <i>Utopia of the Uniform,</i> Tanja Petrović offers a powerful and compelling narrative that provides a very much needed alternative reading of the end of socialist Yugoslavia. I particularly like the way the author mines the Yugoslav past for the possibilities of a utopian future. This book will shift the debate in a variety of fields.” - Kristen R. Ghodsee, author of (Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us about the Good Life) “Tanja Petrović’s <i>Utopia of the Uniform</i> is a tender, provocative account of how men lived, thought, and felt in the Yugoslav armed forces. It is also about what happened to their friendships and solidarities when their country came apart at the seams. Petrović writes about masculinity from a place outside it. In so doing, she captures something that those who live it can’t see.” - Samuel Fury Childs Daly, author of (A History of the Republic of Biafra: Law, Crime, and the Nigerian Civil War) “<i>Utopia of the Uniform</i> stands out for its engaging language. The large number of first-hand testimonies and photographs transcend the hermeticism of academic literature, making it accessible to a wider readership interested in the former Yugoslavia.” - Astrea Nikolovska (Reviews in Anthropology) "The work is ethnographically rich and theoretically complex, arguing strongly that Yugoslavia was held together by such “affective infrastructures,” which made Yugoslavs see themselves as members of a collectivity. This study is an important corrective to the literature focusing on the wars that ended Yugoslavia and to the anthropology of the state. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." - R. M. Hayden (Choice)
Introduction. A Silent Force That Unsettles Ruins 1
1. History, Stories, and Selves 22
2. A Barbed-Wire Utopia 37
3. The Routine 61
4. The Uniform 76
5. The Ritual 96
6. Dissolution of Form 118
Interlude. The Catastrophe 128
7. The Aftermath 134
8. Form and Life 153
9. Afterlives 173
Epilogue. An Infrastructure for Feelings 185
Notes 195
Bibliography 217
Index 231