Across the sea and over the mountains: Documenting Albanian migration

Starting in 1990, Albania has witnessed one of the great emigrations of recent times; ten years later at least 600,000 Albanians, one in five of the population enumerated by the 2001 census, were living abroad, mainly in Greece and Italy. This paper documents and interprets this mass migration, and is in four parts. The first describes the evolution of the emigration against the demographic, economic and political background of Albania's post‐communist transition. The second and third parts look at Albanian migration to, respectively, Italy and Greece: topics covered include the chronology of movement; geographical distribution of the migrants; and the reaction of the host society, which has been one of stigmatisation and exclusion despite Albanians’ key contributions to the labour market. The final part of the paper explores some conceptual interpretations of Albanian migration, stressing the need for a broad synthesis which encompasses both economic and socio‐cultural approaches.     

Recent discoveries of Aurignacian and Epigravettian sites in Albania

Albania is a possible stepping-stone for the dispersal of Homo sapiens into Europe, since Palaeolithic traces (namely from the so-called Uluzzian culture) have been discovered in neighboring Greece and Italy. After two years of searching for evidence of modern humans in Albania we here report on excavated test trenches representing two time slices: an Aurignacian open-air site from southern Albania and two Epigravettian cave sites in central and northern Albania—areas heretofore archaeologically unknown. The new Albanian data fill a gap in the eastern Adriatic archaeological record for Marine Isotope Stages 3 and 2. Adding current knowledge of Late Pleistocene landscape evolution, a “contextual area model” can be constructed describing the habitats of these human populations.     

Heritage Recycled: migration and tourism as factors in the heritage of vernacular settlements

Since the 1980s Greece has been the destination of many Albanian migrants in search of work and better living conditions. The research on which this study is based examines the case of Santorini, a small Greek island which relies heavily on tourism and is currently in the front line of migration. This paper focuses on the relationship between migrants and space, by considering the interaction between migration, tourism and heritage. Heritage brings tourism flows, tourism generates migration through the demand for labour which cannot be met by locals, and migration helps to keep heritage alive because migrants occupy the old deserted settlements and also provide the means for the revitalisation of traditional ways of production. Through research in three different locations on the island, it is suggested that, contrary to the common public perception that migrants operate in a destructive way towards the spatial, social and economic environments, they actually contribute to their revitalisation.     

Albania during WWII: Mustafa Merlika Kruja’s Fascist Collaboration

This essay discusses the fascist collaboration of Mustafa Merlika Kruja, Albania’s prime minister from 1941 to 1943. In textbooks published before 1990, Kruja was called the Albanian Quisling and his very name was associated with treason. Yet even in publications after the 1990s Kruja was seen as Albania’s black sheep and only few sources viewed him objectively. Aiming to unite Albania with Kosovo, he stressed the need to fight communism, which for him was synonymous with antinationalism and, which he believed, would bring Albania to ruin. Thus Kruja used anticommunism and nationalism as his main political weapon to gain support for his collaboration with fascist Italy and with Albanian nationalists.     

Negotiating between patriarchy and emancipation: rural-to-urban migrant women in Albania

It is essential to explore the role of gender while analysing internal migration in Albania to account for the differing experiences of men and women. Quantitative studies suggest that Albanian internal migration is pioneered by men, with women merely acceding to their wishes. This article addresses the undervalued role of women in the academic discourse concerning migration in Albania. Utilizing ethnographic research techniques, it explores the role of women migrating from rural to urban areas as part of a larger household and examines the coping and negotiating strategies used for survival in the city. Our findings reveal that women actively participate in the rural-to-urban migration process, including the initial decision to migrate and the choice of destination. Women's narratives provide evidence of specific emancipation strategies through which they express themselves and their new ways of living. Women adjust to and challenge their new urban environment through gaining paid employment and expanding their social networks, as well as experience emancipation through daughters and by changing their appearance, achieving varying degrees of personal and social prosperity.     

From pioneer migration to family reunification: Polish women’s narratives of lifestyle preferences in Bologna,Italy

In the article I analyse the emergence of lifestyle considerations among former labour migrants and the importance of these new preferences for their choice to settle in the new location. The paper critically engages with the theoretical framework of ‘lifestyle migration’ and discusses its applicability to labour migrants from Central-Eastern Europe settling in Mediterranean countries. I present the interplay between economic and lifestyle reasoning based on two narrative biographical interviews with migrants in Bologna, drawing on my comparative qualitative research in Italy and the UK. The pioneer female migrants went to Italy as care workers in order to fulfill their households’ immediate economic needs. During the years of circular migration the women developed ties to Italy, but found prolonged periods of separation from their families no longer acceptable. The female migrants opted to transfer their whole households to Bologna. Based on the women’s experience and preferences, the families’ consumption preferences and leisure activities transformed in the course of settlement in the Italian city. I claim that lifestyle is a fruitful concept in researching migrants’ changing aspirations, way of life in the new location and the reasons for staying. This approach allows to go beyond the typologies based on the initial motivations for migration.     

Gender and feminist studies in Albania – a brief state of the art

Abstract

The aim of this contribution is to identify how gender and feminist studies have positioned themselves within the higher education system in post-socialist Albania. In Albania, the post-socialist context was featured by a negative connotation of the left-wing perspective hindering the development of critical and feminist thinking in academia. There is a lack of feminist debate, and hostile prejudices against feminists stick well, particularly in the absence of a thorough debate about feminism. Gender and women’s studies are present mainly in the public university system in association with the Social Sciences Faculty. The only complete program on gender studies is situated within the Department of Social Work and Social Policy, as a Master program in Gender and Development. Gender or feminist studies are mostly taught as “optional” courses often just for the sake of having them present in the program. In this contribution, we aim at briefly presenting some of the main developments, gaps and challenges regarding gender and feminist studies in the Albanian higher education.     

Migrant mothers,left-behind fathers: the negotiation of gender subjectivities in Indonesia and the Philippines

The distinct feminization of labour migration in Southeast Asia – particularly in the migration of breadwinning mothers as domestic and care workers in gender-segmented global labour markets – has altered care arrangements, gender roles and practices, as well as family relationships within the household significantly. Such changes were experienced by both the migrating women and other left-behind members of the family, particularly ‘substitute’ carers such as left-behind husbands. During the women’s absence from the home, householding strategies have to be reformulated when migrant women-as-mothers rewrite their roles (but often not their identities) through labour migration as productive workers who contribute to the well-being of their children via financial remittances and ‘long-distance mothering’, while left-behind fathers and/or other family members step up to assume some of the tasks vacated by the mother. Using both quantitative and qualitative interview material with returned migrants and left-behind household members in source communities in Indonesia and the Philippines experiencing considerable pressures from labour migration, this article explores how carework is redistributed in the migrant mother’s absence, and the ensuing implications on the gender roles of remaining family members, specifically left-behind fathers. It further examines how affected members of the household negotiate and respond to any changing gender ideologies brought about by the mother’s migration over time.     

‘Washing men's feet’: gender,care and migration in Albania during and after communism

This article compares the interrelationships between gender, family structures and intra-family care arrangements during two markedly different periods of Albania's recent history. The first of these, the communist era, was dominated by the autocratic state-socialist regime of Enver Hoxha. In contrast, the post-communist period that followed was characterised by a kind of reactive free-for-all capitalism and high rates of both internal and international migration, the latter mostly to Greece and Italy. Families have been torn apart by this mass emigration, resulting in husbands separated from their wives and children, and older generations left behind by their migrant children. All this contrasts with family, residential and care arrangements during the communist period when not only were families generally living in close proximity, but also state welfare was available to support vulnerable and isolated individuals. Across these periods, however, the burden of care responsibilities fell almost wholly on women, despite the egalitarian ideology of the socialist era and the potentially modernising and empowering effects of post-socialist migration on the agency of women. The article provides a valuable lesson in historicising regimes of gender, family and care across dramatically contrasting social models.     

The transnational one-child generation: family relationships and overseas aspiration between China and the UK

ABSTRACT

Education-motivated migration from East Asia is regarded as a family capital accumulation project where middle class families reproduce their socioeconomic advantage at a transnational level. This study focuses on one-child generation migrants from mainland China who came to study in the UK as teenagers or young adults but remained to work as professionals after their education. Caught between the British social/employment system and the Chinese family system, the one-child migrants showed a fragmented sense of belonging and a high level of uncertainty in the migration plan. The pervasive Confucian family culture in these transnational families also calls for an expanded conceptualisation of the term ‘children’ and a long-term observation of their mobility curve in the project. This paper incorporates rational motivation with human complexity in the context of transnational reality, thus it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of changing intergenerational relationships in the transnational family capital accumulation project.     

北京女性流动人口的家庭类型及其形成因素

本文通过国内外相关流动人口（移民）与性别研究和北京女性流动人口随机问卷调查,主要探讨女性流动人口在流动人口家庭中的身份和地位,并分析北京流动人口家庭类型及其形成要素。     

THE ROLE OF FAMILY SUPPORT AND OTHER FACTORS IN RETURNING HOME

The present study focuses on the effect of social and other support from the family in the place of origin of migrants and how it impacts upon migrants’ propensity to return. The study uses longitudinal data from a project in Northeastern Thailand called the Nang Rong Project. The analysis shows that monetary support from the family left behind has a significant effect on migrants’ propensity to return home. Household strategies of migration have played an important role in explaining migration in the Nang Rong setting. At the individual and household level, education, occupation and household size were strongly associated with migrants’ propensity to return to their original village. Among the social support variables, duration of migration has significant effects on migrants’ likelihood of returning home. Three variables—marital status, wealth index and whether the person came with an immediate family member—were found to have weak associations with the dependent variable. A major finding from this study was that migrants who have higher education are more likely to stay at the destination.     

Albania's Road from Communism: Political and Social Change, 1990–1993

Until the late 1980s, Albania was one of the least known countries in the world and virtually inaccessible to foreigners. Most studies on Eastern Europe lacked reliable and complete information about Albania; it was usually either mentioned as the smallest and the least developed country of Europe or totally ignored. For their part, Albanian scholars have made little contribution, if any, to analysing their society under Hoxha's Communist regime. As with all totalitarian systems, Albania's Communism was immune to criticism for almost forty-five years, and information on domestic issues was tightly controlled. This article aims to throw some light on and to systematically analyse Albania's road from Communism. The country's inherited social, political, cultural, and economic conditions have made Albania's move from Communism the most difficult and convulsive of all the East European countries. They are also likely to put considerable obstacles in the path of establishing a true democracy, making Albania's post-Communist transition highly uncertain.     

Reproducing,transforming and contesting gender relations and identities through migration and transnational ties

This article contributes to conceptual debates on gender transformations in the context of migration and transnationalism. We do so by discussing developments in gender relations and identities among Polish post-accession migrants in Norway; analysing the intersections of continuities and changes, relationally, as these are produced spatially and temporally. We draw on ethnographic data collected among Polish migrants in the Norwegian cities Oslo and Bergen (2009–2012). Our focus on continuity and change in gender relations and identities, in the context of migration and transnationalism, stems from a realization that migration often leads to assumptions of either radical change, or conservative continuity. Meanwhile through an analytical lens sensitive to relationality and socio-spatial circumstances, we find friction, disagreement, as well as negotiation and resolution, and we argue for the variety of ways in which continuity and change may run parallel, reflective of variations in transnational habitus produced in relation to social class. We pay attention to locations and scales, as salient for how gender relations and identities are reproduced, transformed or contested. The flexible continuum we find reveals diverse strategies of coping with migratory situations, as well as complex interplay between migrants’ agency, existing structures and engendered understandings.     

‘DOING FAMILY’

Drawing on a case study of married female migrants from two rural villages of Hung Yen province to Hanoi City, Vietnam, this paper investigates the implications of female migration on gender roles and relations within families. The paper shows that wives' migration changes gender roles and relations within the family. Being on the move, migrant wives become the main breadwinners while their husbands left behind take on the role of carers. The migrant wives acquire a stronger voice in family matters and a strong sense of pride, worthiness and earned respect, whereas their husbands experience a loss of power. However, these changing gender roles and relations rarely result in family fragmentations; instead, families are still being sustained as migrant wives ‘do family’. By ‘doing family’, they can exploit their increasing power in an acceptable manner, so that patriarchal family ideals are not openly confronted. This paper provides a more nuanced understanding of the implications of female migration on families, i.e. the simultaneity of the reproduction of and the change in gender roles and relations within families.     

Introduction: Italy and the Euro–Mediterranean ‘migrant crisis’: national reception,lived experiences,E.U. pressures

The introduction discusses the origins of this themed section of the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, based on a 2017 interdisciplinary conference about migration and the migrant experience in Italy. The co-editors recognized early on that the U.S. media was paying inadequate attention to migrant landings in Italy during the so-called refugee crisis around 2015–16, and engaged scholars active in Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. to provide further nuance to this particular migratory flow, and in particular to question how the term ‘crisis’ was used in describing it. In response to a public debate increasingly prone to alarmism, the articles produced after the conference investigate the contradictions of the Italian reception system of migrants and refugees; the often glossed-over labour, race, and gender aspects of the flows; and the critical conditions of the Mediterranean crossing as represented in film and theatre. The contributions specifically bring forward the migrants’ voices to challenge the exclusionary practices adopted in Italy and Europe in favour of structured legal channels, and to reveal the growing crisis of E.U. democratic principles.     

Cape Verdean women on the move: ‘Immigration shopping’ in Italy and Europe

The central theme of this article is the notion that migrants ‘shop’ for opportunities of work, income and social advantages in different countries. Taking the case of Cape Verdean women migrants, the research is based on 25 in‐depth interviews carried out with domestic workers in Rome and Rotterdam. I explore ways in which these women have negotiated mobility, employment and family and household responsibilities within the context of a largely independent female migration which is well established from Cape Verde. Italy has a nodal role in channelling mobility from Cape Verde to various destinations in the global Cape Verdean diaspora. But while opportunities for stable employment as domestic workers in Italy have been a constant factor encouraging Cape Verdean women to migrate to Italy, difficulties over pay, working conditions, welfare and family reunion have led to much onward movement to the Netherlands and elsewhere.     

Ageing well: the time–spaces of possibility for older female Latvian migrants in the UK

In this article, we explore the relationships between ageing, place and migration based on life history interviews with 37 female Latvian migrants in the UK. Reflecting an approach that sees migration as both embodied and emplaced, we conceptualise ageing and migration as entwined becomings that reconfigure the possibilities of a ‘better life’ in different time–spaces. Our approach combines time-geography with a well-being-based approach to migration constraints and outcomes. Our stress is on vitality – the ways in which migrants are able to mobilise resources and enact agency even in an environment where some aspects of life and working conditions are restrictive and exploitative. Hence, older Latvian women are able to transgress negative perceptions of ageing in their home country and achieve a measure of empowerment, both economic and psychosocial by moving to the UK.     

Kin state non‐interventionism: Albania and regional stability in the Western Balkans

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Albanian regional policy from 1992 to 2013. Situated in a conflict‐ridden region and surrounded by co‐ethnics living in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, Albania has successfully resisted pressure to undertake interventionist regional policies. However, there are no structured accounts as to how Albania fashioned its non‐interventionist regional policy. This article fills this gap and retraces the development of Albanian regional policy as a function of its inter‐mingled domestic politics and regional and international dynamics. The article concludes that the Albanian regional approach has been shaped by its legacy of communist isolation, pro‐Western predisposition and recognition that accommodation of Western interests would overcome its constraints and advance the rights of Albanians living in the Western Balkans. The analysis is important not just for understanding Albania's actions but also for disentangling the relationship between regional policy, nationalism and a kin state's domestic and international constraints.     

The cultural construction of Italy in Albania and vice versa: Migration dynamics,strategies of resistance and politics of mutual self-definition across colonialism and post-colonialism

This article analyses the shifting ways in which Italy has been strategically represented in Albania during the different key passages of the latter's relatively recent history as a sovereign independent state. As a parallel narrative, the article also examines the way Albania has been equally strategically represented in Italy before and during the two periods in which Italy has been militarily involved in Albania, and the way this has been consistent with an attempt to elaborate and sustain a politically strategic definition of Italian identity and culture. The history of the asymmetrical relationship between Albania and Italy is deeply embedded in the social, cultural and political environments that are on the two shores of the Adriatic Sea. The cultural construction of Albania in Italy and vice versa of Italy in Albania should be linked to seemingly independent instances of domestic reforms. The dynamics of projective identification or dis-identification stemming from these instances should be seen as intertwined within two parallel processes of mutual definition encompassing both the colonial and the postcolonial relations between and within the two countries.