Family and Mobility. Continuities, Shifts and Generational Dynamics Among the Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia
Family and Mobility. Continuities, Shifts and Generational Dynamics Among the Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia

Summary/Abstract: The ethnographic evidences from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries point to the extended family structures among Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia as “the last big zadrugas”. The interpersonal relationships and personal behaviour as well as the responsibility and all activities within such a family were grounded on strong divisions of age and gender with a prevailing domination of men and elders. Labour migrations, having become a very important and mass source of means for living for many Albanian families during the second half of the 20th century, have gradually aroused important socio-cultural transformation processes. Migrants are faced with the choice between the traditional Albanian ideal of subordination to the common family interests or providing a better life only for their own wife and children. Furthermore, because of family reunification processes since the 1980s the most serious dilemma that all Albanian men working abroad faced was whether to take their nuclear family along with them or not. In result, various conflicts related to individual interests, gender or generational discords started to emerge, bringing about splits within many of the extended families. On the base of first hand ethnographic data, the paper examines the dynamics of family structures and relationships in the context of decades-long intensive labour mobility which in many cases has involved two or even three generations within a family-kin group.

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