Suchergebnisse

In this article, Rozita Dimova examines the rearticulation of class and ethnicity and how class distinctions produced by a free market and neoliberal economy in Macedonia have affected the interaction of Albanians and Macedonians in postsocialist Macedonia. Dimova highlights the ethnic dimensions of changing patterns of consumption by exploring the class mobility of one ethnic group (Albanians) and thus combines class, commodities, and consumption with notions of ethnicity. The process of articulating ethnicity and class is induced by the larger neoliberal context of the post-Cold War world in which the political economy of the "free" market and privatization inform local subjectivities. The domain of consumption, therefore, offers a place from which we can understand the complex interactions of multiple actors in Macedonia and see the various economic, performative, and symbolic significance of consumption in which the social mobility of the nouveaux riches Albanians has contributed to the loss of class privileges experienced by many ethnic Macedonians.

Anhand von Interviews mit Flüchtlingen aus Bosnien und Herzegowina, die während des Krieges in ihrem Heimatland zwischen 1992 und 1995 nach Deutschland kamen, beschreibt die Verfasserin einen in der Politik der Erinnerung enthaltenen Widerspruch: die Spannung zwischen tatsächlichen Erinnerungen vergangener traumatischer Erfahrungen und den politischen Zwängen, die solche Erinnerungen in aktuellen Kontexten beeinflussen. Gegenwärtige Komplikationen mit dem rechtlichen Status der Flüchtlinge aus Bosnien und Herzegowina in Berlin haben einen Diskurs angeregt, der - als "strategische Erinnerung" bezeichnet - von vergangenen Ereignissen in einer sehr selektiven, planvollen und kalkulierten Art Gebrauch macht. Diese strategische Erinnerung unterscheidet sich sowohl von der Authentizität als auch von der Nicht-Authentizität dessen, "was wirklich passierte". Statt dessen geht es um den rechtlichen und politischen Kontext, der die Ökonomie des Gedächtnisses selbst formt: seinen Inhalt, seinen performativen Aspekt und die Erzählungen, die den "realen Schmerz und das Leiden" umfassen. Anstatt die Genauigkeit dessen zu evaluieren, an was sich die Menschen erinnern, wird hier die gebrochene und nichtlineare, auf verdichteten Raum-Zeit-Achsen ruhende Verlaufsrichtung des Gedächtnisses analysiert: Es stützt sich auf die Vergangenheit, wirkt auf die Gegenwart und zielt darauf ab, Spannungen des rechtlichen Status für die Zukunft zu lösen. (ICG2)

In 2000, when conducting a household survey as part of my research on consumption and ethnicity in the small western Macedonian town of Kumanovo, I received explicit proof of how important education has become for ethnic Albanians. It was a Friday afternoon on a hot summer day. I was in my top-floor apartment, working with my research assistant, Adnan, a 28-year-old ethnic Albanian man who had been helping me for the past year. We had grown to be a well-synchronized team. It was his turn to dictate while I entered data from the survey into the computer. The questionnaire concerned interior decorations, but it began with several general questions about the ages, education, and number of family members. After we finished entering around thirty of the questionnaires completed in Albanian, Adnan suddenly stood up without a word. He went into the kitchen, and started drinking water from the first thing he saw, which was an empty olive jar drying on the dish rack. Then he came back, clearly upset. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the upper part of his hand, and exclaimed,There is something not right here. I cannot believe that, in a family of eight, six members have college degrees and they all live together in one house. Bullshit! I would have known that family. I know most of the Albanians here and, trust me, this is not true. This is all exaggerations and lies.

This volume is a collection of papers presented at the 60th International Academic Week organized by the Southeast Europe Association in October 2022. The event brought together scholars to discuss the various facets of international return migration from diverse destination countries back to Southeast Europe.

By drawing on geology's approaches to studying porosity, the book takes an innovative approach arguing that similarly to rocks and minerals that only appear solid and impermeable, seemingly impenetrable borders are inevitably traversed by different forms of passage.