Volume 29, Number 6, November  2003

Special issue: Albanian migration and new transnationalism
Guest editors: Nicola Mai and Stephanie Schwander-Sievers

Articles
Abstracts

Articles

Nicola Mai and Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers
Albanian migration and new transnationalisms
Abstract This brief paper introduces the special issue of JEMS on Albanian migration, which collects together revised versions of a selection of papers first presented at a conference held at the University of Sussex in September 2002. The uniqueness and complexity of Albanian migration are first spelled out. Although the main focus is on post-1990 migration, some interesting historical precedents are noted. Attention then turns to the two main contexts of reception, Italy and Greece, where host-society reaction has been characterised above all by stereotypes and the stigmatisation of Albanians. The remainder of the paper introduces each of the subsequent articles under a series of thematic headings – historicity, agency and identity.
Keywords: Albanian migration; Transnationalism; Media stereotyping; Agency; Identity
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 939-948, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Isa Blumi
Defining social spaces by way of deletion: the untold story of Albanian migration in the postwar period
Abstract European migration has been characterised since the end of the Second World War as one shaped by migratory work schemes and economic opportunism. The underlying rationale which induced hundreds of thousands of people to move to Western Europe during the period, therefore, has been largely reduced to economic factors. This article challenges the value of such approaches by identifying a largely forgotten community whose extensive settlement in European cities has never been studied as part of this postwar migration. The case of Albanian-speakers reveals a large number of reasons why people settled in Europe. The article further explores the sociological consequences for these Albanian communities as a result of their unrecognised condition in their host societies, in particular as it concerns their capacities throughout the postwar period to politically organise and to adopt measures of self-representation that were deemed important to them.
Keywords: Forced migration; Inter-ethnic relations; Identity; Racism; Migrant labour
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 949-965, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Corrado Bonifazi and Dante Sabatino
Albanian migration to Italy: what official data and survey results can reveal
Abstract Drawing on secondary sources – statistical data and published surveys – the article offers a detailed overview of Albanian migration to Italy since 1990. The paper addresses four main topics. First, we review the size and socio-demographic characteristics of the Albanians who have immigrated to Italy. Two data sources are used: permits to stay and population registers. Both reveal a fast-growing immigrant population during the 1990s, and one which is becoming more demographically normalised, with more women and children. The second part of the paper examines the labour market performance of Albanian immigrants, who are generally confined to a variety of low-status jobs with only limited evidence of occupational improvement. Regional contrasts, especially between northern and southern Italy, are important, since Albanian employment is closely tied to regional economic structures. Compared to other immigrant nationalities in Italy, Albanians have a weak tendency to become self-employed or business owners. Housing is the third topic of the paper: again the regional dimension is important, as well as the length of stay in Italy. Early arrivals, now with families, are reasonably well integrated in the housing market; recent migrants much less so. Nevertheless, Albanians as a whole suffer high levels of housing deprivation, above all because of the constricted supply of cheap accommodation and some discrimination by landlords. In the final section of the paper we address the complex issue of Albanians’ alleged propensity for crime and deviancy: the figures strongly suggest this is a falsely constructed image.
Keywords: Albanian immigrants; Italy; Statistical data; Employment; Housing; Crime
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 967-995, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Ankica Kosic and Anna Triandafyllidou
Albanian immigrants in Italy: migration plans, coping strategies and identity issues
Abstract This paper studies the adaptation and survival strategies that Albanian immigrants develop from the beginning of their migration project through to their establishment in the host country, Italy. We are particularly interested in how immigrants make sense of the host country’s social and institutional environment and the related immigration policy measures and implementation practices, and their strategies for coping with these. More specifically, the study examines how immigrants organise their migration project upon departure from the country of origin and how they adapt their plans and develop coping strategies in response to the social and institutional environment of the country of destination. We also explore how they experience the daily practices of immigration policy implementation in the Italian administration offices and how they perceive ‘institutional’ or ‘private’ attitudes of discrimination (the presence of prejudice, discrimination and/or hostile treatment or, on the other hand, the presence of flexible and personalised practices of policy implementation in favour of immigrants). We thus show how immigrants act in a context of limitations and opportunities which they actively integrate into their migration experience and their understanding of themselves, their country of origin and the host country. The research is based on 30 interviews conducted with Albanian immigrants (22 men and 8 women) between September and December 2001 in the Florence area.
Keywords: Albanians; Italy; Immigration; Coping strategies; Implementation; Identity
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 997-1014, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Eda Derhemi
New Albanian immigrants in the old Albanian diaspora: Piana degli Albanese
Abstract This paper examines the encounter between ‘new’ Albanian immigrants who arrived since 1990, and the ‘old’ Albanian diaspora (Arbëresh) in a Sicilian town, Piana degli Albanesi. The paper is in six parts. In the first, I explore the history of migration into this town. The second section discusses the concept of diaspora and the ways the different Arbëresh and Albanian communities fit this concept; the similarities and differences between the two communities are examined. The third section analyses a survey of a group of Arbëresh and a group of Albanians from Piana regarding their feelings and attitudes towards each other, which shows the existence of social conflict between the two groups. The fourth section presents the sociolinguistic relations between Arbëresh and Albanians, emphasising patterns of linguistic subordination of the Albanian immigrants and investigating the motivations of the conflict between the two groups. The fifth section examines the two communities assessing their diglossic and di-ethnic nature, in order to better understand their relations and to illuminate prospects for future development and co-existence. In the last section I respond, in summary, to two key questions about the relations between Arbëresh and Albanians in Piana. Why are language and culture maintenance an issue for Albanian immigrants in Piana? Will the Albanian language survive in immigrant settings?
Keywords: Albanian migrants; Arbëresh; Sicily; Sociolinguistics; Diaspora; Ethnicity
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 1015-1032, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Panos Hatziprokopiou
Albanian immigrants in Thessaloniki, Greece: processes of economic and social incorporation
Abstract This paper addresses the complex issue of Albanian migrants’ economic and social incorporation in a Greek city, Thessaloniki. The empirical base of the research is 30 in-depth interviews with Albanian migrants. Migrants' integration is seen in a dynamic perspective, which examines different contexts of incorporation: the policy framework, the labour market context, the socio-spatial environment, and the role of social networks. Exclusion and integration of migrants in the host country are seen as dynamic processes, which may be contradictory but operate in parallel. Incorporation thus becomes the process through which immigrants, despite structural and institutional obstacles, build their lives in the host society; it is strongly conditioned by time and it may also take place-specific characteristics.
Keywords: Albanian immigrants; Thessaloniki; Social exclusion; Integration; Labour market
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 1033-1057, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Penelope Papailias
The story of a ‘hero’ of migration, and other transgressions of the Greek-Albanian border
Abstract A young Albanian who hijacked a Greek public bus in May 1999 has been apotheosised as a ‘hero of migration’ by fellow-Albanians. This paper considers how the hijacker’s story, as narrated in a pirated cassette-recorded memorial song, has served as a collective document of everyday exploitation and violation at the hands of Greek bosses and the police, as well as a vehicle for fantasising revenge and recouping agency, voice and masculinity. The moral claims and gender ideologies asserted in this alternative account of the hijacking are grounded in a discourse of kurbet (a Turkish-derived term for ‘travel-for-work’) and its distinctive constructions of subjectivity, history and value. While this event reified the Greek-Albanian border, giving credence to the notion that Greeks and Albanians exist in different developmental and civilisational time-zones, the deaths of the Albanian hijacker and a Greek hostage, both men in their twenties, and the public mourning of their fathers, point to a shared crisis of social reproduction, national health and male power in the context of post-socialism and the global economy.
Keywords: Migration; Crime; Gender; Social reproduction; Historical representation; Greek-Albanian border
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 1059-1078, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)

Denisa Kostovicova and Albert Prestreshi
Education, gender and religion: identity transformations among Kosovo Albanians in London
Abstract This paper explores identity transformations of the Kosovo Albanian diaspora in the United Kingdom by focusing on the dimensions of education, gender and religion. Taking into account both the structural factors of the adopted country and the impact of a strong sense of nationhood based on traditional beliefs and mores, the analysis traces the emergence of internal lines of identity differentiation within the Albanian community in a diasporic context. The uniform interpretation of the Albanian identity is under a growing pressure to incorporate alternative views of Albanianhood as they emerge from the process of interaction with the political, social, economic and cultural environment of the host country. The paper shows that the persistence of a commitment to such rigidly defined sense of nationhood has thus far stopped these from turning into lines of division within the Kosovo Albanian diaspora. It posits that a constructive internal redefinition of the Albanian identity in the UK is necessary in order to forestall the process of fragmentation of the Kosovo Albanian diaspora community.
Keywords: Kosovo; Albanian; Diaspora; Identity; Transformation; United Kingdom
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29 No. 6: 1079-1096, © 2003 Taylor and Francis Ltd)