Migration is currently the hottest topic facing European governments. As some have suggested, the current crisis will define this decade. Migrants who depart their homelands are motivated by many reasons, most seriously by war and conflict as we see with the recent migrants from Syria. However, once migrants are settled in new host societies they continue to maintain links with homelands, and due to globalization and mediatisation, transnational links are easily formed and maintained. Many scholars have explored these phenomenons, especially the different ways that the homelands remain in the imagination of those in the diaspora. However, with western governments advocating repatriation, especially to countries that are deemed safe, how do the countries of origin feel about the return of their diaspora, whether due to repatriation, holidays or work related visits?
This article explores the discourses and representations of Kosovo Diaspora by Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo (what I refer to as homeland Kosovans). I wanted to examine diasporic identity construction by looking at how those in the homeland constructed the diaspora. The reasons for this also stem from my own experience. I was born in Kosovo but I grew up in the UK. I went back to Kosovo in 2004 and lived there on and off until 2012. What surprised me among many other things, were the particular stereotypes about the diaspora that were present in Kosovo.
It is widely estimated that between one-in-three and one-in-four Kosovo Albanians live outside Kosovo in what the Kosovo Albanians refer to as the «diasporë». In the Albanian language the word «diasporë» is synonymous with «outside» or «abroad». However, if approximately one-in-three Kosovo Albanians live in the diaspora it is very likely that every family in Kosovo has someone living in diasporë and diaspora is «inhabited» by those left behind and those constructed and represented as indigenous. Therefore, it is important to engage those who have not migrated in order to explore how they imagine, perceive and construct those who did.
The periods of migration from Kosovo can be historically traced and divided into four distinct phases: those who migrated from the 1940s to the 1960s due to the brutal Aleksandar Ranković security policy, those who migrated from 1963 to the end of the 1970s and those who started to migrate from the 1980s to the early 1990s – before visas were introduced by western countries for Yugoslav nationals (although illegal migration continued), and finally between 1998 and 1999 during the Kosovo War.
Historically, Kosovo has had a very distinct urban/rural divide. Throughout Yugoslavia, those who were well educated and residing in the cities looked down on the agricultural and uneducated rural population, and Kosovo is no exception. It is common to hear references to those from the city as «Qytetar», implying that they are an elite class, and to the «Katundar» or «Katunart», meaning those from the villages, which implies a backward, rough and uneducated person (or simply the equivalent of a «hick»). This discriminatory discourse has existed despite considerable mixing of individuals and families, particularly amongst those settling in the capital, Prishtina. It is important to draw attention to these stereotypes because the diaspora of Kosovo is composed of populations from a mixture of both urban and rural areas, cities and villages.
From the interviews I did, it became clear that destination matters in how these stereotypes play out in the homeland discourse surrounding Kosovan Albanian diaspora. The people I spoke to clearly imagine those who migrated to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Nordic countries as predominantly rural, unskilled workers, whereas in contrast, those who migrated to the UK are thought of as urban city dwellers, who were already well educated before they migrated and who migrated due to political persecution, rather than for economic reasons. Moreover, in comparison to those «thinking», «intellectual» elites who were persecuted by the system and regime and had no choice but to leave, there is a suggestion that migrating for economic reasons is negative and a personal individual choice.
During the interviews I asked what they thought about the Kosovo Albanian diaspora. The answers were complex, usually beginning with a narrative that involved positioning the diaspora in relation to the homeland, and into specific times and historical periods of migration. The interviewees also provided specific reasons they believed caused these migrations (either economic, political or a mixture of both) and identified specific places they assumed that certain socio-economic groups migrated to. The first group of migrants forming this imagined diaspora were constructed as economic migrants who emigrated to find employment in the West as «gastarbeiters»; the second, those who were fleeing political persecution during the late 1980s and 1990s; the third, the refugees who left during the NATO intervention in the 1999 war.
The interviewees began describing the diaspora by providing historical narratives of migration, which in most cases began with explaining the migration of guest workers, or more generally talking about economic migrants from the 1960s. Indeed, there was a disproportionate level of emphasis on describing the diaspora who migrated to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Nordic countries as «gastarbeiters». Other periods of migration, for example, to places such as Turkey during the Rankovic years, 1946-1966, were largely ignored. Distinct periods of migration linked with common destinations were referred to with apparent ease, suggesting that this knowledge is drawn from a common national historical narrative. This was generally followed by differentiation and classification of those time and destination specific migrant groups, with examples of perceived reasons and routes of migration.
The interviewee also suggests that those who left to work as guest workers were somehow incapable of getting jobs in what he represented as a good economic climate in communist Yugoslavia where almost everyone was employed. In fact, at the time of the legalisation of migration to Western Europe, Yugoslavia was going through a recession; there was high unemployment and a hard currency crisis. By the end of the 1970s Yugoslavia was attempting to bring back those migrants and developed policies of return. However, due to the constant persecution of Kosovo Albanians during this period, and the common persecution of those who returned from the West in former Yugoslavia (returning migrants suspected by the security services for holding democratic ideas not in tune with the communist ideology of the time could be punished with imprisonment), it is possible that some did not return and instead became political asylum seekers – a possibility ignored by the interviewees.
Despite a lack of clear official data about those who migrated to the UK, the assumption that most were educated and urban might be explained by the absence of guest worker agreements between the UK and Yugoslavia (since the guest workers or «gastarbeiters» were the ones who were rural and uneducated).
In these responses, a historic narrative of migration provides the structure through which the complexity and diversity of the Kosovan Albanian Diaspora is reduced and simplified into familiar binary categories of urban vs. rural, educated vs. uneducated, gastarbeiter vs. political exiles and integrated and un-integrated. The following section demonstrates how this framework of understanding diaspora from the homeland provides the conditions of possibility for the construction of the stereotype «schatzi».
The use of the word «schatzi» in Kosovo originates from a subversion of the German word Schatz, which is literally translated into English as treasure. The word is used in slang German as the equivalent of the English words sweetheart or darling. As such, in Kosovo «schatzi» is subverted and used as a familiar trope, a rhetorical device, which generates meaning in a new subverted context. The word «schatzi» relates a very specific meaning, intended to signify a particular social and economic group in the Kosova Diaspora and their relationship to homeland.
The interviews show, «schatzi» is a well-established stereotype used in the language of Kosovo Albanians as a discursive and rhetorical device to generate meaning when referring to diaspora from continental Europe, but more specifically from Germany and Switzerland.
Even commercial advertisement in Kosovo refers to those from the diaspora as «schatzi», such as the recent advertisement campaign by the main telecommunications company in Kosovo «Vala», whereas in contrast, in such visual media, young beautiful actors portray homeland Kosovans as fashionable and «European».
The «schatzi» stereotype appears in such accounts to be positioned in relation to more positive perception of the UK diaspora, further emphasising the negative connotations of diaspora in Germany and Switzerland. Asked specifically about the public image of seasonally returning Kosovo Albanians from the UK diaspora, an interviewee asserts:
«I personally do have respect for those coming from the UK, because I have the feeling it’s not only for fashion, but they are influenced by culture and by daily life there. While diaspora in, let’s say Germany or Switzerland, those are most distinguished ones, uh, have not changed much especially in their mentality. They earned money, they are richer, much richer than they were but their quality of life has not changed. I have a feeling that they have not changed, their mentality is the same one, even worse: their mentality is the same as ours was when they left »
The suggestion is here that a certain entrenched, traditional «mentality», impervious to cultural influences, functions to mark the distinction between rural «schatzi» and others in essentialist terms. Whilst the UK diaspora’s «mentality» is open and amenable to influence «by culture and by daily life», the German and Switzerland group remains pathologically entrenched in pre-migration modes of thought.
In order to illustrate these points I will analyse a parody comedy sketch by the popular «Stupcat» group of Kosovo Albanian comedians. The sketch is entitled «the return of my son from exile». The sketch begins with a stereotypical Kosovo Albanian village father talking into the camera of a local TV crew who have come to film as he says the «big day». The father explains that this big day is when his son is due to be returning from Switzerland for his annual visit «back home» to Kosovo. He tells us that he has arranged for a reception for his son, which includes a traditional folk band and a children’s school choir. He leads the local TV crew cameras to his garden where the scene is set.
His wife is also present (is performed by a man to increase the comedic impact) and is also depicted as a stereotypical Kosovo Albanian villager. They seem very excited about the return of their son. They refer to him as a living hero. Within a few minutes the son comes through the garden gates, dressed in a white suit and black sunglasses, holding a silver briefcase, which looks like it is full of money. This is when the ceremonies begin, they praise him, the choir sings in his honour thanking him for his efforts during the Milosevic regime, when he supported the family financially, as well as later, when he supported the war effort by sending money during the war. His sister presents him with a ceremonial glass of Kosovo water to drink, while simultaneously expressing that she is pregnant with a son, which she will name after him (thus asking for patronage).
He proceeds to sit down with his parents at the table in the garden and tells them that in his briefcase he has 450’000 thousand Swiss franks, which his mother quickly converts to 350’000 thousand euros. He says that he would like to give them the money but he cannot do this as he has been diagnosed with cancer and only has a few days to live. He says that he would like to spend the money to make himself comfortable in his homeland as he prepares for death. His mother asks him «whom he contracted cancer from?» This is important since most Kosovans still believe that cancer is a disease that has come to Kosovo from people living in the West. The son tells her that it’s not contagious and no one is to blame. At this stage the son is clearly unhappy and emotional, exclaiming that he is not treated like a son, that he is only loved for his money. At this stage the scene changes and turns grotesque, the father tries to take the briefcase off his son and to run with it. The son runs after him catching up with his father to fight. Both parents turn violent and verbally abusive calling their son names and denouncing him as their son, the mother finally says he probably doesn’t have cancer but has AIDS. This again is believed to be a disease that the diaspora and the presence of the international community have brought to Kosovo. They eventually succeed to take the briefcase from him and lock him out. Then we see the son outside the gates of his family home counting down from 10, 9, 8 and we see an explosion, and the son declares that «this is a greeting from the diaspora».
So «schatzi» is not just a word, on the contrary it is a stereotype that functions to «other» the Kosovo Albanian diaspora, especially diaspora deemed socially and culturally lower and uneducated.
The interviews show that the dominant discourses surrounding migration and immigration which have for a long time influenced discourses of identity, belonging, exclusion, multiculturalism, cultural difference and personal and national narratives of citizenship are not exclusive to host country contexts. Furthermore, the interviews suggest that at a time when migration is a hot topic and even a crisis that will, as Angela Merkel has recently stated, «be the next major European project», migrants returning to countries of origin may not necessarily find themselves welcomed back.