THE INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER AND GENERATION IN ALBANIAN MIGRATION, REMITTANCES AND TRANSNATIONAL CARE

The Albanian case represents the most dramatic instance of post-communist migration: about one million Albanians, a quarter of the country's total population, are now living abroad, most of them in Greece and Italy, with the UK becoming increasingly popular since the late 1990s. This paper draws on three research projects based on fieldwork in Italy, Greece, the UK and Albania. These projects have involved in-depth interviews with Albanian migrants in several cities, as well as with migrant-sending households in different parts of Albania. In this paper we draw out those findings which shed light on the intersections of gender and generations in three aspects of the migration process: the emigration itself, the sending and receiving of remittances, and the care of family members (mainly the migrants' elderly parents) who remain in Albania. Theoretically, we draw on the notion of 'gendered geographies of power' and on how spatial change and separation through migration reshapes gender and generational relations. We find that, at all stages of the migration, Albanian migrants are faced with conflicting and confusing models of gender, behavioural and generational norms, as well as unresolved questions about their legal status and the likely economic, social and political developments in Albania, which make their future life plans uncertain. Legal barriers often prevent migrants and their families from enjoying the kinds of transnational family lives they would like.     

Moral economies of food and geographies of responsibility

This paper uses the concept of 'moral economy' to challenge the conventional view that defines morality and the market as oppositional terms. Drawing on evidence from life history interviews with key actors in the British food industry, the paper outlines how moral and ethical questions are articulated through notions of space and time. Using case study material from the chicken and sugar industries, the paper examines the way that ethical and moral issues are expressed through the dimensions of time (via notions of remembering and forgetting) and space (via notions of connecting and disconnecting) and via notions of visibility and invisibility. The paper concludes by examining how our understanding of the moral economies of food can be advanced through the adoption of a relational view of geographical scale and temporal connection, contrasting the attribution of individual blame with a politics of collective responsibility.     

Book reviews

C. Skinner (ed. and tr.) Ahmad Rijaluddin's Hikayat perinteh negeri Benggala. vi, 198 pp. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde. Bibliotheca Indonesica, 22.)

J. A. de Moor (camp.). Indisch Militair Tijdschrift (1870–1942) a selective and annotated bibliography. [i], xiv, 236 pp. The Hague: Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis van de Landmachtstaf; Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion, 1983. (Bijdragen van de Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis No. 15; Intercontinenta, No. 4). Guilders 24.

A. Teeuw and S. O. Robson (ed. and tr.). Kuñjarakarna dharmakathana, Liberation through the law of the Buddha: an Old Javanese poem by Mpu Dusun. With a contribution on the reliefs of Candi Jago by A. J. Bernet Kempers. ix, 230 pp., 24 plates. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde. Bibliotheca Indonesica, 21.) Guilders 90.

W. van der Molen. Javaanse tekstkritiek: een overzicht en een nieuwe benadering geillustreerd aan de Kunjarakarna. ix, 316 pp. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1983. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde, 102.) Guilders 30.

Jan B. Avé and others. West Kalimantan: a bibliography. By Jan B. Avé, Victor T. King, and Joke G. W. de Wit. x, 260 pp. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1983. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volken‐kunde. Bibliographical Series, 13.) Guilders 30.