Between Social Opprobrium and Repeat Trafficking: choices and chances of Albanian women deported from the UK

Book abstract: Human trafficking is widely considered to be the fastest growing branch of trafficking. As this important book reveals, it has moved rapidly up the agenda of states and international organisations since the early-1990s, not only because of this growth, but also as its implications for security and human rights have become clearer. This fascinating study by international experts provides original research findings on human trafficking, with particular reference to Europe, South- East Asia and Australia. A major focus is on why and how many states and organisations act in ways that undermine trafficked victims' rights, as part of 'quadruple victimisation'. It compares and contrasts policies and suggests which seem to work best and why. The contributors also advocate radical new approaches that most states and other formal organisations appear loath to introduce, for reasons that are explored in this unique book

Albanians, Albanianism and the Strategic Subversion of Stereotypes.

This contribution describes the ways in which various European host countries’ stereotypical imageries of Albanians as being culturally particularly prone to violence have forced contemporary transnational Albanian migrants into subversive strategies and practices of identity mimicry. This powerful stereotypical imagery, a sub-category of Balkanism known as Albanianism, can be traced through various European historical literature and contemporary policy as well as in historical auto-imagery which all have always mutually mirrored and influenced each other. The study finds that ‘Albanian violence’ valorised according to political and economic interests, i.e. romantically glorified as ‘noble’ or demonised – typically in reference to customary kanun traditions and customary ideals of heroism, manly courage and honour – in both hetero- and auto-imageries. But, equally,mutually sceptical attitudes (Occidentalist and Orientalist) can be identified as well as the historical precedents for outsiders appropriating paternalist protectionism towards the Albanians in reference to ‘primitive’ local customs. In the end it emerges that, today, it is exactly those criminals – who by their actions help to perpetuate essentialist generalisations of Albanian violence – are the ones benefiting from contemporary Albanianism in implicit discursive alliance with contemporary, exclusivist, immigration policy

Epistemic Justice and Everyday Nationalism: An Auto-Ethnography of Transnational Student Encounters in a Post-War Memory and Reconciliation Project in Kosovo

This contribution introduces an exercise in epistemic justice to the study of everyday nationalism in post-conflict, transnational (local and international) encounters. It explores how everyday nationalism, in often unexpected and hidden ways, underpinned a cocreational, educational project involving several local (Albanian) and international (British based) university students and staff collaborating on the theme of post-war memory and reconciliation in Kosovo. The set-up resembled a microcosm of transnational social encounters in project collaborations in which the problem of nationalism, typically, is associated with one side only: here, the Kosovars. Guided by Goffman's (1982) social interactionist framework, the study employs selected participants' paraethnographic and auto-ethnographic reflections of their project experiences and practices after the event in order to trace the everyday workings of mutual assumptions and constructions of a national self and other for all sides involved. In this, it explores how the project participants' asymmetric positioning within a wider, global context of unequal power relations shaped their vernacular epistemologies of belonging and identity. It thereby excavated what otherwise taken-for-granted criteria can become relevant in such local/international social encounters as reflected upon and how the enduring power imbalances underpinning these might best be redressed

Longing for Lost Normalcy: Divergent Meanings of Social Memory and Transitional Justice in the ‘House Museum’ to Missing Persons in Kosovo

In spring 1999, amidst a wider ethnic cleansing campaign, Serb police forces abducted Ferdonije Qerkezi’s 15 husband and four sons, who were never to be seen alive again. She subsequently transformed her private 16 house into a memorial to the lost normalcy of her entire social world. We trace this memorialization 17 process; her struggle for recognition; her transformation into an iconic mother of the nation and her 18 activism, both for missing persons and against the internationally-driven Serb-Albanian normalization 19 process in Kosovo. From a multi-disciplinary perspective, we critically reflect on the theoretical concept of 20 “normative divergence” in intervention studies. We are guided by social anthropological (including 21 immersive, historical-ethnographic, and semantic) analysis of the core tropes of social memory as both 22 narratively and materially embodied by the House Museum. In systematically juxtaposing these to the 23 normative transitional justice principles of truth, justice, non-recurrence, and reparations, and the 24 overarching international intervention goal of reconciliation, we critically interrogate normative 25 divergence per se. The ethnographic “thick description” of this case study – cognizant of context 26 contingency, victims’ agency and experience, cultural change, and social transformation – points to 27 divergent meanings of these principles as resulting directly from the political and institutional failure to 28 provide key transitional justice goals

Introduction to special section on 'police reform and human rights in the Western Balkans'

Throughout the Western Balkans a range of international actors have been involved in the comprehensive reconstruction of polities, economies and societies ravaged by the violent conflicts and political turmoil of the 1990s. The reform of police forces in accordance with international policing and human rights standards and practices has played a crucial role in the wider peace- and state-building efforts. To international proponents of liberal democratic governance, the police, alongside the judiciary and the penitentiary system, should serve as an important pillar of protecting human rights. Given a history of the police’s participation in the war efforts during Yugoslavia’s disintegration process as well as their role as henchmen of the previously ruling regimes, tackling the legacies of ethnic bias and human rights violations in the police forces appeared of utmost importance. Beyond this specific war-related necessity and guided by the concept of ‘democratic policing’, international-facilitated police reform processes in the Western Balkans – like in many other parts of the world – have aimed to turn the police into a ‘servant’ of citizens, not the state. This implies that the police forces should operate in an accountable, transparent and law-abiding manner in accordance with internationally and domestically agreed human rights standards. The envisaged result is the provision of security to all citizens equally, which in turn contributes to the improvement of domestic human rights practices and the emergence of a rule of law culture. But how effective have these endeavours been in practice? What lessons can we draw from efforts to implement democratic policing agendas in the Western Balkans