The Problem of Social Protection in Albania

The aim of this paper is to analyze the social protection system in Albania during the last two decades. It highlights some of the problems and issues which are closely associated with elements of social security, as a phenomenon that focuses on finding solutions or solving the problems in social security systems in Albania. Of great importance are the changes in the social security legislation in recent years, which led to a new structure of the social insurance market in Albanian society. Also discussed are the types of benefits offered by our social insurance system. Our country occupies a special place in relation to the problems it has encountered with social protection and the social security law.Celem niniejszej pracy jest analiza systemu zabezpieczeń społecznych w Albanii w ciągu ostatniej dekady. Istotne jest, aby wybrać niektóre z problemów i zagadnień, które są ściśle związane z elementami zabezpieczenia społecznego, jako zjawiska, które koncentruje się w kierunku znalezienia rozwiązania poprzez systemów zabezpieczenia społecznego w Albanii. Duże znaczenie miały zmiany w ustawodawstwie dotyczące zabezpieczeń społecznych przez ostatnie lata, które doprowadziły do nowego znaczenia w Albańskim społeczeństwie dla rynku ubezpieczeniowego. Omówione zostaną również rodzaje świadczeń z systemu ubezpieczeń społecznych. Szczególne miejsce zostało poświęcone dla problemów, które napotykał kraj w egzekwowaniu nowych praw ochrony socjalnej i ubezpieczeń społecznych

Performing selfhoods in U.S. rituals of private and public spheres

In this study, I explore four events to learn the embedded instructions of selfhood performatives in each case and how these performatives code public and private space and experience. The selected events offer a different and explicit example of private and public modes of authority and access – e.g., in the public museum experience of an exhibit by photographer Taryn Simon, in the gift of a ticket to Burning Man, womyn only at MichFest, and insider exclusivity at Roden Crater. While each event offered a different understanding of selfhood as it applied to the participant, each confirmed a selfhood performative in play through its structure, methodology, and dependence on participation. Calling on Louis Althusser’s theories of subjectivity and ideology to approach a definition for selfhood performative, ultimately I argue for a Bakhtinian use of the term. Bakhtin relies on an expansive definition where “selfhood is not a particular voice within, but a particular way of combining many voices within” (Morson and Emerson 221). This “particular way” can be understood as a conscious compositional approach to selfhood served by the performance research practice of mystory developed by Gregory Ulmer. The mystory attempts to record and articulate the relationships of the composer and her interdependent institutional and personal subjectivities through the application of the relay. Throughout the study, I make use of a literal and figurative relay between the events, composing, collecting, and documenting associations while conducting my research and drawing out the patterns and poetics therein. The purpose of the study is to show connections between selfhood performatives and commodification, and to find regularities, ironies, and pleasures between the revealed performatives and codes. I also examine how these events enhance, challenge, or stray from post-structural theories that support the interdependence between selfhood and prevailing concepts of public and private. The study also supports the application of mystory theory, with its resistance to the reproductive elements of a model, as performance research that offers an update to Brecht’s notion of theater “for an audience of the scientific age” (Brecht 185). I attempt to locate today’s audience as one situated in the tension of constructing selves between binary notions of private and public caused by the ramifications of scientific objectification and conceptual representation and reproduction. I argue the mystory is an approach to understanding the self constituted from within the interdependence of private and public relationships, and holds the unrepeatable self central to that approach

Chassing a daisy

The words of a language are not a mere nomenclature. If read in the complexity they offer, they can also act as the eyes of a language; precisely those eyes through which the community of that given language perceived the world and expressed it by communicating. By complexity we intend to include in the study of a word not only its form or its signifier, but also its different meanings as semiotic variations and also what is known from myths, rites and everything that is inherited from the knowledge of peoples. This path, which is nothing more than a renewed revival of the old philological school "The Words and Things", this path of study was therefore followed in this essay dedicated to the "luledele" (daisy in Albanian), intent on correcting a lectio-fatilior in its interpretation, and bringing the Sun back to the center of the system, as already in other languages related to it

An analysis of reconciliatory mediation in Northern Albania: the role of customary mediators

This research investigated the old practice of customary mediation in the Northern Albanian society. The data used in this research was mainly generated through interviews with community mediators. The strategies and techniques used by the mediators in twenty-seven cases of killings (due to blood feud, momentary and previous fight or accidents) were analyzed. The strategies were analyzed on the basis of Bercovitch and Huston classification: communication-facilitation, rocedural-formulation and directive-manipulation strategies. The techniques were analyzed based on Callister and Wall's table of mediator's techniques in community mediation. Further more the reconciliatory process was also analyzed through Lederach's framework of the elements of reconciliation: truth, mercy, justice and peace. Examining the twenty-seven cases of mediation in the Albanian context we can conclude that most of the killings happened due to momentary fights and mostly they were people who had relations with each other. In analyzing the strategies of the mediators it is searched whether they use more communication-facilitation, procedural-formulation or manipulation. The findings showed that in most case the mediators used either communication-facilitation or directive-manipulation. The techniques used in these cases reflect the features of Albanian mediation but they also give us insight on other techniques the mediators use in community mediation in penal case. These techniques are bounded by the cultural background and the rules of the Customary Law. Albanian traditional mediation bares the characteristics of VOM and the traditional mediators abide by the Restorative Justice principles. Albanian mediation shows to bare the characteristics of the cultural context in which it takes place. The values found in the Albanian customary law, Kanun, in a way guide the mediation process as well. The findings also suggested that some of the elements of reconciliation are understood differently in the Albanian culture

A historical comparison of the Albanian and Turkish citizenship in the 20th century

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This study aims to compare the Albanian and Turkish citizenship from the early 20s to the present day. The comparison will focus the Albanian and Turkish understandings of citizenship by looking at the way they are defined, that is the legal status of citizenship; the way it is practiced, which implies civic virtue in terms of participation in the political and social community; and the way it is perceived, that is identity or the way one expresses one’s membership in the community. Therefore this study is an attempt in the understanding of the common grounds and differences between the building, the application and perception of the notion citizenship in Albania and Turkey. This study provides an intra and inter comparison of Albanian and Turkish citizenship during three periods of the Twentieth century, therefore it allows for a self comparison and comparison between bothv countries. Albanian and Turkish citizenship are both constructed on the basis of Western understanding of citizenship, be this civic republican or liberal democratic, however, the most common problem throughout the time-period chosen is the difference in what is allowed de jure and what is practiced de facto.Shkreli, EtritM.S

Arthur Schnitzler und die Erste Republik

Meine Arbeit „Arthur Schnitzler und die erste Republik“ ist eine sozial-geschichtliche Unter-suchung seiner Werke nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg (1918). Arthur Schnitzler ist einer der be-rühmtesten österreichischen Schriftsteller und war ein klassischer Vertreter der Wiener Mo-derne. Er wurde von vielen Literaturwissenschaftlern als „der resignierte Dichter“ bezeichnet, der in der Wiener Moderne gefangen war, und ihren Stil in seinem ganzen Schaffen beibehal-ten hat. Das Ziel meiner Arbeit ist zu beweisen, dass Schnitzler kein Gefangener seiner Epo-che war, sondern die Änderungen, die in Österreich nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg passiert sind, wahrgenommen hat und in ausgewählten von ihn nach 1918 wiederzufinden. Im ersten Kapitel habe ich die wichtigsten Ereignissen nach 1918 erwähnt, sowie die politi-schen Entwicklungen und manche Veränderungen im Bereich der Literatur, Ökonomie und Geschlechter. Im zweiten Kapitel beschäftige ich mich mit Schnitzlers Tagebüchern, die er sehr akribisch geführt hat, und in denen er auf die politischen, ökonomischen und gesellschaftlichen Verän-derungen reagiert hat. Die nächsten vier Kapitel behandeln je ein Werk, das ich zur Analyse ausgewählt habe. Diese habe ich ausgesucht, weil sie die Schicksale verschiedener gesellschaftlicher Vertreter behan-deln. Die Werke sind: „Casanovas Heimfahrt“ (1917), „Fräulein Else“ (1924), „Spiel im Morgen-grauen“ (1926) und „Therese. Chronik eines Frauenlebens“ (1928). Casanova ist ein Mann mittleren Alters, der seine Existenz verfallen sieht. Diese Figur kann man mit Schnitzler selbst vergleichen. In „Spiel im Morgengrauen“ ist Leutnant Kasda die Hauptfigur. Er will die Veränderungen der Gesellschaft nicht wahrhaben und weiter in einer Welt leben, die es nicht mehr gibt. Diese Naivität kostet ihm letztendlich das Leben. Schnitzler hat in den zwei anderen Werken, „Fräulein Else“ und „Therese. Chronik eines Frauenlebens“ Frauenschicksale beschrieben. Else, ein junges Mädchen aus einer verarmten bürgerlichen Familie, hat die typischen Schwierigkeiten junger Frauen ihren Platz in einer neuen Gesellschaft zu finden. Therese kann man als eine Weiterentwicklung Elses verstehen. Manche ihrer Wünsche, wie zum Beispiel ökonomische und sexuelle Unabhängigkeit, werden von Therese angestrebt und in gewisser Weise auch erfüllt. 88 Bei allen vier Werken habe ich mich hauptsächlich auf drei Themen konzentriert: Erstens den Niedergang des Bürgertums, wie die einst Reichen und Mächtigen sich nach dem Krieg zu-rechtfanden und wie sie mit den für sie ungewöhnlichen Problemen der neuen Zeit umgingen. Zweitens mit der Bildung einer neuen Schicht - die Neureichen. Wie Diese mit ihrem neu verdienten Geld umgehen und ihr Verhalten gegenüber dem alten Bürgertum. Der dritte Schwerpunkt ist die Veränderung der Rolle der Frauen in dieser neuen Zeit

An Anthropological Perspective on Vlachs in Southeast Albania

This research gives an overview of the Vlach identity in southeast Albania within the pattern of self-designation. I try to identify identity aspects of the place and people under the influence of border and transnationalism, during communism and post-communism, and the transition from communism to a democratic system. I discuss how during the two systems the place and people developed a marginalized identity affected by the lack of the Center’s attention (Tirana) and by developing policies. In this paper, I debate about politics of identity and politics of assimilation relating to the Vlach minority in the county of Korça. Particular attention is given to Census Albania 2011 while I explain the assimilation politics of the Albanian state.  Significant is the fact that I focused my study in my own country as part of anthropology at home, because I saw it worth utilizing the repertoire of being familiar with my own people’s culture, including also the acquaintances of language-Albanian and Romanian and with people of the area. The research was conducted in rural villages with a high presence of Vlach minority, in order to analyze inter-ethnic relations. The social research map targeted the village of Voskopoja, former Moscopole or Moscopolis as it is also a multiculturalist landmark affected by transnationalism and transmigration processes. In observing identity aspects, I employed a total experience, demanding my anthropological resources, intellectual, political, intuitive, native, and insiderness-outsiderness observation forms of knowledge. Had to measure the controlled information the locals delivered to me or to other researchers who had already produced texts about Vlachs

Working Group “Violet”. Refused-Derived Fuel from Municipal Solid Waste to reduce landfills (REFREsh DANUBE)

The REFREsh Danube project aims to reduce the landfilled amount of municipal solid waste, which is a source of water and soil pollution, by its use as refuse-derived fuel in the cement industry of Novi Sad (Serbia). The main actors involved are Lafarge Beočin Cement Factory, Municipality of Novi Sad, JPK Čistoća (waste-management company) and experts from interdisciplinary fields. The project addresses societal challenges on climate change, air, water and soil pollution as well as using the municipal solid waste as an alternative energy source in response to H2020 and Europe 2020 Strategy

Reduction of aversive learning rates in Pavlovian conditioning by angiotensin II antagonist losartan: a randomized controlled trial

Background: Angiotensin receptor blockade has been linked to aspects of aversive learning and memory formation and to the prevention of posttraumatic stress disorder symptom development. Methods: We investigated the influence of the angiotensin receptor blocker losartan on aversive Pavlovian conditioning using a probabilistic learning paradigm. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled design, we tested 45 (18 female) healthy volunteers during a baseline session, after application of losartan or placebo (drug session), and during a follow-up session. During each session, participants engaged in a task in which they had to predict the probability of an electrical stimulation on every trial while the true shock contingencies switched repeatedly between phases of high and low shock threat. Computational reinforcement learning models were used to investigate learning dynamics. Results: Acute administration of losartan significantly reduced participants’ adjustment during both low-to-high and high-to-low threat changes. This was driven by reduced aversive learning rates in the losartan group during the drug session compared with baseline. The 50-mg drug dose did not induce reduction of blood pressure or change in reaction times, ruling out a general reduction in attention and engagement. Decreased adjustment of aversive expectations was maintained at a follow-up session 24 hours later. Conclusions: This study shows that losartan acutely reduces Pavlovian learning in aversive environments, thereby highlighting a potential role of the renin-angiotensin system in anxiety development