https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 20 Apr 2020 13:08:43 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/albanian-migration-in-greece-understanding-irregularity-in-a-time-of-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:48 +0000 http://arc.local/items/albanian-migration-in-greece-understanding-irregularity-in-a-time-of-crisis/ Continued]]> The third decade of Albanian migration to Greece signalled a historical change in the human geography of Greece’s largest migrant group. The impact of the economic recession and the visa-free regime for Albanians entering the European Union shaped a new fluid reality for Albanian irregular migration. This paper explores the impact of the socio-economic transformation processes on the migrants’ legal status vis-à-vis irregular status and integration dynamics. The emerging mobility strategies are conceptualized as a migrants’ agency that overcome socio-economic barriers or policy restrictions and navigate them. This paper goes beyond the legality-irregularity dichotomy, suggesting it is the multidimensional ‘in-between’ space of semi-irregular status where apparently ‘irregular’ Albanians interact with various forms of agency. Our aim is to explore how the irregular/legal nexus developed within the Balkan in the specific context of Greece. The empirical analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 94 Albanians and 13 stakeholders in Greece and Albania.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/diasporic-youth-identities-of-uncertainty-and-hope-second-generation-albanian-experiences-of-transnational-mobility-in-an-era-of-economic-crisis-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:43 +0000 http://arc.local/items/diasporic-youth-identities-of-uncertainty-and-hope-second-generation-albanian-experiences-of-transnational-mobility-in-an-era-of-economic-crisis-in-greece/ Continued]]> This paper explores various dimensions of ‘gender’ and ‘mobility’ among immigrant youth from a transnational perspective in an era of economic crisis. The extent and parameters of continuity, contestation and change in migrant youth identities are analysed and we suggest that neither gender nor identity are stable categories but are embedded in sociocultural particularities both in the country of residence (Greece) but also in the country of origin (Albania). Through in-depth interviews with 52 participants, all second-generation Albanian immigrants in Greece born to two Albanian parents, the paper addresses youth identification in relation to gendered representations of belonging. The narrative accounts that we have selected and analysed reflect the emotional challenges, constraints and creativity of Albanian youth.

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