Negotiating Variegated Stabilities: Working Conditions of Supermarket Employees in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract This ethnographic article explores the everyday experiences of supermarket employees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on one hypermarket in Tuzla. Once a highly industrialised city, Tuzla’s landscape has been reshaped by the rise of retail trade, with the Bingo supermarket chain becoming a dominant economic force. Despite paying low wages, the company is perceived as a source of stability and formal employment in an industry where informal jobs predominate. The article examines how employees navigate the paradox of being simultaneously exploited and protected within the supermarket setting. It introduces the concept of “variegated stabilities” – forms of workplace security that are arbitrary, temporary, and dependent on personal relationships with the management. The stabilities that employees gain and foster through shared bonds of mutual support contrast with the perceived absence of the state and reflect the negotiation the workers engage in to achieve a meaningful life in a private company.