university of nova gorica graduate school contested spaces and ...

PREAMBLE
Anthropologists have become increasingly aware that ethnographic representations are not
simply “about” such social processes as place making and people making but are at the same
time actively involved in such constructions (Gupta and Ferguson 2001: 23).
Gupta and Ferguson (2001 [1997]) suggest that the choice of the location of anthropological
fieldwork constitutes and shapes the way of ethnographic representation and leads to the
choice of theoretical approach for analysis of ethnographic data. Therefore I open my thesis
with Preamble instead of Introduction. I will try to explain to the reader some of my personal
experiences, especially from the earlier days of my fieldwork in Southern Albania and
provide him or her with a closer look at the village and its people.
Preliminary Visit
9 th September 2004. On a sunny autumn day my interpreter Entela and I took a trip to the
villages of Himarë (official, Albanian name) or Himara (local Greek name) area of the
southern Albanian coast. Entela and I set off from the sultry and smoggy town of Vlorë late in
the morning.
I was introduced to Entela by my colleague Sanila, a lecturer at the University of Vlorë to
which I was affiliated during my research in Dhërmi (official, Albanian name) or Drimades
(local, Greek name). I met Entela a few days before our trip to the Himarë/Himara area.
According to Sanila she was one of her best students who had just graduated in English and
psychology. Entela’s decision to accompany me on my pre-fieldwork voyage to the villages
of Himarë/Himara was rather exceptional as the majority of single women (i.e., over 18 years
old) in Albania are generally not approved to wander around on their own or in the company
of a “foreigner”. To my queries as to why this is so, many people offered an explanation that
after the fall of communism and the civil war in 1997 people living in Albania became aware
that nothing is safe and secure. Regardless of the social, political and economic changes that
took place after the collapse of communism many things remained the same, that is
“conservative” or as some Albanians would say fanatikë (fanatic).
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