Kosovar Albanian goldsmiths and bakers in Zagreb: Migration and ethnic enterpreneurship
Kosovar Albanian goldsmiths and bakers in Zagreb: Migration and ethnic enterpreneurship

Summary/Abstract: This paper is based on qualitative interviews with Kosovar Albanians, goldsmiths (Catholics from Prizren) and bakers (Muslims from the Has region) who live in Zagreb. The interviewees are economic migrants and their descendants who, during the coexistence in Yugoslavia, came to the area of the Republic of Croatia, especially to the tourist towns on the Adriatic coast, in order to work. Seasonal migration usually turned into permanent relocations to the city of Zagreb. With the breakup of Yugoslavia, the migrants became members of a national minority in the Republic of Croatia. Using the ethnography of the particular, and basing the research on migration systems theories, the theories of social and cultural integration and the transnational theory, the aim of this paper is to explore their lived experiences as migrants. The paper shows the causes of the migration and remigration, the reasons and the intensity of the (non)transformation of seasonal into permanent migration, the process of learning the crafts and ethnic entrepreneurship. Researching their life in Zagreb, we were interested in their everyday life, the groups from which they choose their marital partner, the language they speak, their connections to the place they came from, their participation in migrant circles, and how they spend their free time.

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