Preliminary Project Report of the FWF Project "The Kosovar Albanian Family Revisited"
Project Leader: Prof. Karl Kaser FWF Project Number: P22659-G18
Family in a Fragile State and Economy in Kosovo: The Case of Opoja
by Elife Krasniqi
The drawing on the cover named ‘My Family’ was done by Erblina Qafleshi (5) in the ‘Sezai Surroi’ school, village of Bellobrad, Opoja.
31.10. 2012
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 1
Introduction
In a postwar country such as Kosovo, societal transformations are inevitable. In regard to family, these changes have impacted not only structure and size but also everyday family life. The project "Family in Kosovo- Revisited" carried out at the Center for Southeast European History and Anthropology (SEEHA) at the University of Graz and funded by the Austrian Science Fund, has been researching changes over time in the Kosovar family in relation to social security and social cohesion. The research has focused on two regions in Kosovo, Isniq and Opoja, in order to track the changes after the war in 1998 and 1999. Isniq and Opoja are prime locations for this study, because of the two PhD projects that were conducted there before the war: Reineck's study about Opoja (1991), and Backer's (1979) on Isniq. Both researches were conducted in very peculiar political periods in Kosovo that surely impacted both social and cultural life. The project team consists of Dr. Carolin Leutloff- Grandits, who focuses on migration in both regions - Isniq and Opoja, Mag. Tahir Latifi (Isniq) and me, researching the Opoja region, as well as Prof. Karl Kaser, who is leading the project. For this project, we have applied the grounded theory methodology while making use of the family- and kinship studies on the Balkans that the Center (SEEHA) has achieved in last two decades (Kaser 2012)1. Apart from this work, valuable research has been conducted before the war in Kosovo by scholars, which examined different legal, cultural and social aspects of family. Worth mentioning is the work of Krasniqi (1962), Popovci (1973) Berisha (1983), Begolli (1987), Rrapi (1995). Besides studies dedicated to the Opoja family life, important publications on the region’s history, geography, traditions and rituals after the war can be found in in the collection of Xhemaj's work (2005) in Shtresime Kulturore, Meleqi (2009) Opoja: studim kompleks gjeografiko-historik, and in the latest historical anthropological research by Qafleshi (2012), Opoja dhe Gora ndër shekuj..
As far as the methodology is concerned, Grounded Theory has its challenges, especially when one is conducting a research in one's own country. Being myself a Kosovar Albanian, in the field it was often assumed that I would know things about tradition and
1 The Center's recent publication - Household and Family in the Balkans, Two Decades of Historical Family Research at the University of Graz, edited by Karl Kaser, has gathered the work of Karl Kaser, Robert Pichler, Siegfried Gruber, Gentiana Kera, Enriketa Pandeljmoni, who are or have been based at the Center in Graz and explored issues regarding the Albanian family in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia (Kaser 2012).
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 2
family and I was considered an ‘insider’. This was especially the case when I would persist with questions in order to understand certain relations and practices or try to come up with meanings. On the other hand, when I assumed that I understood aspects of family, tradition and cultural traits in Opoja, (which happened often), when talking to people in Opoja, I was considered an ‘outsider’ simply for being from Prishtina. In other words, depending on the topics of discussion and certain contexts, I would be seen sometimes as an insider and sometimes as an outsider.
As required by this methodology, during the first stage of research, I was observing people's everyday life in Opoja and trying to get more familiar with the setting. I have also focused on issues that people in this region find important to their life and on those that they would mostly talk about. I believe that one also has to pay attention to issues that villagers do not talk about, as this does not mean that those issues are not important. I have noticed that there were several issues that people in Opoja would rarely share with me in conversations, for example issues concerning politics and the state. In the second stage, apart from participatory observation, I have also included unstructured and semi structured in-depth interviews, which helped me structure my initial hypotheses.
While attempting to understand the changes in the family in Opoja, whether it concerned issues that villagers talk about or manifested or latent ones, I have observed both the private and the public sphere. To be more precise, I have focused on the family – i.e., on changes in the type of household and in the way gender roles are seen in the public - in the context of a fragile economy and state, in relation to social security. Concerning state laws, economy and social security, further research needs to be carried out in order to gain a closer insight from a micro-level in a day-to-day link with the family.
The dynamics between state laws, the lack of family policies and poor economy have caused changes in family life. Living in a village of Opoja, commuting to Dragash, Prishtina and Prizren, conducting in-depth interviews and consulting literature on the topic, for this preliminary report, I hope to answer the following questions:
What are the changes in the Opojan family? (Demographic transition; what has changed in the family's household structure in Opoja after the war? Nuclearization and Care-giving.
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 3
In which way has the Opojan family been affected by economy and state policies? (Economic context – past and present)
In which aspects do traditional customs prevail? (Wedding and circumcision festivity- different views on marriage customs -gendered practices).
What are the factors that influence the depending position of women in family in Opoja? (Education, economy and tradition).
Being aware that women are traditionally considered (as habitually expressed) ‘the pole of the family’, I have tried to explore these changes from a gender perspective, by focusing more on women’s lives in Opoja. Before I start explaining my first findings and first impressions, I will first give some background information about Kosovo, and the Opoja region.
At this stage of the research it is difficult to conclude on overall transformations in the Opojan family. Therefore, the findings here are to be considered as preliminary results of the project and are subject to change as the research progresses further.
Background Information
Although the former Yugoslavian regime (see map of Yugoslavia in Annex 1)2, seemed to be a country with an ideal social and political order, in fact it treated Albanians in Kosovo as second class citizens. The inequality was shown not only on the level of cultural differentiation but also in figures regarding industry production and employment. As a comparison, in 1961, Slovenia’s GNP was six times that of Kosovo, growing to seven times in 1979 (Reineck 1991: 34). In 1988 the unemployment rate in Kosovo was 36.3 compared to 2.4 in Slovenia (ibid). On the other hand, the education level in Kosovo was still low, especially among women. Families lived in difficult conditions, especially in rural areas where the main source of living was agriculture. Later on, with the creation of jobs, although very scarce, the overall family budget was increased by wage labor in publicly owned
2 The maps of Yugoslavia and Kosovo were taken from Reineck's dissertation. In the Kosovo map, at the city of Mitrovica I have deleted the part ‘e Titos’ in order not to be confused with the real name of the city: Mitrovica.
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institutions. Yet for the majority of the population in rural areas, the large size of families made decent living difficult.
After WWII, natality among the Albanian population in Kosovo kept increasing, and it was perceived and propagated by Serbian state media and politics as a threat of Albanians to Serbs, as the former have outnumbered the Serbian population in Kosovo. The Albanian family was under attack, since the increase of natality was depicted as a trait of cultural backwardness and primitivism. The medical doctor of that time, Rada Trajković, a Kosovo politician today, is still remembered for her infamous saying ‘Albanke se kote’ ('Albanian women are breeding’).
However, in this climate of poverty and state discrimination of Albanians in Kosovo, it was the family that provided social security and social cohesion within the Albanian community. Still there were times, considered by many as ephemeral, when the elite class of educated Albanians was in step with the then general modernization and inclusion process, using the benefits of socialism in terms of education and social mobility. Nevertheless, rural areas were slower than urban ones in challenging tradition, which in many ways was the obstacle for inclusion in general socialist society (Gunga, 1986). Furthermore, during political unrest towards the end of the 1980s and the 1990s in Kosovo, people in rural areas returned even more to what felt safely the most – the traditional3 values and order. If during socialism there was a path of changes and women started claiming their merited position in family and society, in 1990s they were back under patriarchal dominance again due to the harsh political changes (Kaser 2008). Against these harsh political changes, intellectual women in the urban areas in Kosovo, have organized themselves in several forms of civil engagement against discrimination by the Serbian government (Farnsworth 2008). The severe political disorder has reached its peak with the Kosovo war and the deportation of more than 850,000 Albanians from their houses in March 1999 (Human Rights Watch, 2001: Chapter 4) by Serbian forces to two opened corridors – Albania and Macedonia. During this expulsion, countless families have been torn apart – either while people were put in trains by paramilitary groups, police and army, or while crossing the border to Macedonia from no man’s land known as Bllaca. After crossing the border of Macedonia and Albania, many were sent to refugee camps, from
3Being aware that the term ‘traditional’ is very complex, in this text I use it in the sense of practices that might be both the legacy of Kanun of Leke Dukagjini (the mountain Code) or of Islam in Opoja.
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where they could flee to hosting countries in Europe, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, hoping that the rest of family would join them afterwards. This was a great traumatic break for many families. By this time, the family was the safest nest, whereas at this time people felt that they were thrown to the 'unknown', without the only source of security and solidarity – the family in a whole.
After the Kumanovo Agreement (NATO 2007), which ended the war in Kosovo, Albanian families returned to Kosovo to bury their loved ones properly, to try and find missing family members, rebuild their burnt houses and looted apartments and start all over in hope for a new life4. Some of the families that fled to foreign countries came back to Kosovo, whereas some others tried to bring the rest of family that remained in Kosovo to these countries. The post-war period has also affected family life. Some of the so called ‘traditional practices’ of family life could not be carried over into the new post-war circumstances. These new circumstances required new skills, shift of gender roles as well as new creative solutions. In the villages of Krusha e Madhe and Krusha e Vogel, where state organized crimes against Albanians were conducted (Human Rights Watch 2001: Under Orders), and in other villages of Kosovo, where alike these villages most of the male population was killed, women took up the role of the household head, by building their homes, bringing up children, working the land and doing household work at the same time. This could serve as an example that humans mainly are the product of circumstances and not necessarily, as sometimes mistakenly perceived, living artifacts of cemented cultures.
Opoja - The Tail of Kosovo
Opoja is a region situated in Sharri Mountains, in south Kosovo, bordered by Albania in the west and Macedonia in the southeast (see map in Annex 2). Opojans usually say ‘ne jemi n’ bisht t’Kosovës’ (we are in the tail of Kosovo). This is the answer not only when one talks about where Opoja is situated geographically, but also when the villagers talk about the
4 During the war in Kosovo, according to cases registered by the Humanitarian Law Center, Memory book 1998- 2000, around 1660 Albanians were killed (including 678 Kosovo Liberation Army soldiers) and 296 Serbs (inlcuding167 members of the Yugoslav Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Shkelzen Gashi (2012): Kosova 1912 – 2000, History Textbooks of Kosovo, Albania and Serbia by.
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latest developments in the city, be it on culture or economy, or about some of the customs that are still prevalent in Opoja, and not so much in other regions. The municipality of Dragash or Sharri with Dragash town as its center administratively covers Opoja and Gora. The latter is inhabited by Gorani (Slavic Muslims), whereas Opoja's population is Albanian Muslims, in all the 19 villages. According to estimations done by the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI – ethno-political map of Kosovo), Albanians made up for 54.7 % of the population in the municipality of Dragash, i.e., in Opoja and Dragash town in 2010, while 43. 4 % are Go- rani, living in Gora and also a small number in Dragash.
Before WWII in Yugoslavia, people in Opoja mainly worked in agriculture and farm- ing. According to the Opojan geographer Prof. Hajriz Meleqi, the change from the feudal sys- tem to ownership as well as the decline of farming and craftsmanship caused an intensive mi- gration, the roots of which go back as far as the Ottoman Empire (Meleqi, 2009: 81), and which characterizes Opoja even today. In socialist Yugoslavia, alike other regions in Kosovo, Opoja was not spared the pressures after the WWII, nor excluded from the general infrastruc- tural and economic developments during the 1970s that were installed by the Yugoslav re- gime in Kosovo. During the 1998- 1999 war in Kosovo, according to Meleqi, 400 young women and men from this region had served as members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (Meleqi, 2009: 83). Meleqi however, does not provide the source of information for this num- ber. When the NATO strikes started in 1999, Opojans were also forced to leave their houses and flee to Albania, Macedonia and then from these countries to other foreign countries. Some of the families who left for the USA, Australia and Canada, did not come back after the war was over in Kosovo (ibid). In general and compared to other regions in Kosovo, Opoja was less damaged by war. According to estimations done after the war by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), there were around 45 houses destroyed, which, provided with reconstruction material by an international NGO ‘Action of Churches Together' ('ACT), have been soon rebuilt by villagers (OSCE mission in Kosovo, Democrati- zation, Municipal Profile: Dragas/Dragash, 29 March 2000).
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Basic Scholarly Discussion
Apart from transformation after the war in Kosovo, with globalization trends and high media presence, there is an acceleration of change in every sphere of life, including family. Although Kosovo is a small country, examining the changes in the family in Opoja – even though not representative for entire Kosovo - it could serve as a good example to illustrate changes of the last decade, on a macro-level on the Balkans in relation to Western Europe. However, putting this topic to these comparative perspectives would require other grounds of research, which will take place in the coming months.
In order to describe changes in the family in Opoja, I will first give an overview of the basic scholarly discussion on the matter5.
In general and based on the researches conducted on family in former Yugoslavia, the Albanian family was perceived to be more of a corporate family form or as commonly known zadruga, which according to one of the earliest definitions by Philip Mosley, would be ‘a household composed of two or more biological small families, closely related by blood or adoption, owning its means of livelihood jointly and regulating the control of its property, labor, and livelihood communally’ (Todorova 1989:6). There was an extensive discussion over the definition of zadruga, and the historian Maria Todorova considered that this term did not really encapsulate the features of the family forms and content in the Balkans but referred mostly to the Slavic population. She suggested dismissing the term altogether (Todorova, 1989: 9, 18). Todorova sees families in the Balkans similar to the Central European and Mediterranean type and she does not emphasize the cultural aspect but looks at it from a de- mographic approach and considers the economic and political changes in the Ottoman Empire by the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century (Kaser 1994; 39 – 40; Kaser 2012: 37). In Family and Kinship in Balkan, historian Karl Kaser disagrees with Todorova and also proposes a new term: the Balkan Family (Kaser 1994). Recognizing the risk that this term could reduce this family form only to the Balkan region, he argues that the Balkan ex- tended family is considered to be a family pattern, found especially in Eastern Europe with complex family structures, which came to existence as a consequence of pastoral economy, archaic tribal groups and patriarchy in general (Kaser 1994; Kaser 2012:15-43).
5 A highly elaborated discussion on joint households and their origins can be found in Kaser 2012: 15 – 109.
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Around this time, although the initial research was done in the 1970s, the Albanian sociologist Gjergj Rrapi published his book Savremene Albanske Zadružne Porodice, in which he suggests, like many other Albanian scholars before, that the Albanian family in Kosovo is of a corporate family type and is unique to Kosovo as it does not exist among the Albanian population in Macedonia, nor in North Albania (in the South it never existed), nor in Montenegro (Rrapi 1995).
The latest work in the period before the war by the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s was the research project conducted by Janet Reineck in Opoja, which undoubtedly was a great account of social and cultural life in Opoja of the period she researched. During that time, great political changes occurred - the revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989, which was followed by several other changes like the expulsion of Albanian employees from public institutions, the closing of the Radio Television of Prishtina and schools for Albanians, the persecution of the Albanian intellectual elite as well as the maltreatment and later also the mass killing of the Albanian civilian population in Kosovo. Reineck's work focuses on aspects of traditional family practices, migration of men and the impact of migration on the village system of values and the reproduction of patriarchy; gender relations, followed by education, which was not always accessible for girls and the pertinence of all of these relations, which did not produce any social change. My first impression while reading Reineck’s work was that she attributes life in Opoja and all the above mentioned issues to culture rather than to the political climate of that period. However, she considers that people in Opoja, in order to cope with the present, find refuge in the past, in culture and tradition. In this line of discussion, in relation to family, Reineck as other Kosovo scholars, in her dissertation argues that ‘The family is a corporate group par excellence...’ (Reineck 1991: 55). Later on, I will try to give my observation by giving examples of changes in the family in Opoja.
Reflections on Changes in the Family in Opoja
There are different angles through which one can discuss issues regarding family and changes that occurred in Opoja, but also the outcomes of these changes. For this report, I will limit myself to several main ones, driven from an emic view.
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In Kosovo, the family remains the most important social institution and in many regards the provider of social security. Speaking on a general scale, due to the mobility of people in and outside the country, the fragile economic developments and the changes of the value system, one can surely say that family in Kosovo is diverse and is in constant change. There are many varieties, for example, multiple or joint households, which according to Peter Lasslet, ‘comprise all forms of domestic groups which include two or more conjugal family units connected by kinship or by marriage’ (Laslett 1972: 30), being more frequent in rural areas. By contrast, one would find more and more nuclear families and even single-mother- families in urban places. In villages, as a consequence of war, there are also families with widows raising their children or widows with a mother-in-law and children. In urban areas there is an increasing practice of partnership bashkëjetesë (living together), meaning the couple living together without any legally and administratively bound marriage, but there are no homosexual families and homosexuality is still considered a taboo. In the past, but to this day as well, there are still couples that do not bind legally in marriage but by organizing a wedding banquet, where family and friends are invited, they receive social legitimization of their marriage, which in these cases appears to be sufficient for them, without necessarily acquiring legal recognition of marriage. In this line, children born within this socially recognized union are not seen as children born out of wedlock. The problem, however, appeared after the war in cases of divorce and child custody6. This aspect needs to be further examined.
In general, one could say that Opoja has both joint and nuclear families, and my impression is that there is a tendency of joint households to nuclearize. Following Kaser’s definition of the Balkan family, in relation to Opoja, as this region had tradition in pastoralism, I will further examine this connection in practical terms in Opoja families. For the time being it could be said that family tradition and practices are appropriated to the temporary circumstances of a transitional phase. In other words, the nuclearization of joint households remains dependent more on financial means, rather than on sentiments related to the traditional joint family, or even culture.
6 This problem was pointed out during interviews with the Lawyers Association NORMA for the research project on women’s movement from 1980 – 2004, conducted by the Kosovar Center for Gender Studies (Farnsworth 2008).
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Before describing the main changes that were mostly highlighted by Opojans, I will give a description of demographic data on this region. The next section is dedicated to the main factor – economy, that in a way conditions change in the family type and family life in Opoja. In this section I will give an overview of economy in past and present, and then describe change in regard to separation (damja) which means the division of property among brothers, and of a joint household. In this context, I will also provide an insight into what the joint household comprises today and talk about nuclearization, which to some extent depends on economic conditions but also the state's ability to create infrastructure for care giving.
Demographic Transition
Certainly one of the factors that have impacted the family in Kosovo is the late demographic transition, which according to demographer Hivzi Sylejmani was due to the late inclusion of Kosovo in the industrialization- and urbanization process (Sylejmani 1985). The pace of the demographic transition could be seen in censuses from 1948 to 2008 of the Statistical Office of Kosovo (Statistical Office of Kosovo 2009). The 1991 census was boycotted by the Albanian population, due to the political changes of 1989. In these statistics provided by the Kosovo Statistical Office, Dragash was not divided into Opoja and Gora. Since our interest is only in Opoja, we have considered but the population and the number of households in villages of Opoja and calculated the Mean Household Size (MHS) from 1948 to 1991 (see Annex 3) taken from the Kosovo Agency of Statistics7. However, this consideration of only Opoja villages has to be taken with reserve, as only in the beginning of the 60s there was a more structured administration or one that was similar to what is there today. Before that, administration was organized into Popular Councils (Këshillat Popullor) and Districts (Rrethe), in which the villages under one council or district were not ethnically divided (Osmani 2006). For example in 1948, in the village of Krushe, which today belongs to the Gora region and the Gorani population, there were more Albanians living then Goranis, and the same was the case in Vraniq and Brod (Osmani 2006, 68 - 70). The statistics below in
7 The data presented are calculated from the statistics on Population, Households According to Settlements and Territorial Organization of Kosovo until 2008, published in 2009 from at that time Statistical Office of Kosovo. *In 2012 the Statistical Office of Kosovo changed the name into Kosovo Agency of Statistics.
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Annex 3 should be read on the level of villages, without presuming a priori that in other villages that were not presented in the statistic data sheet, at least until the 1960s, there was no Albanian population, and vice versa - Gorani or other nationalities living in what we know today as Opoja villages, inhabited by Albanians. Another important component in this regard is the registration of the year 1953, where the municipalities of the district Gora were still populated by Albanians but less than in 1948 (ibid). The author Osmani states that in this year, the Albanian population in Kosovo was forced to declare itself as Turkish, in order for the Yugoslav regime to make the massive move of Albanians to Turkey easier. The massive move was the result of an agreement between Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia, which in fact considered the implementation of the earlier Yugoslav plan for the deportation of Albanians (Malcolm 1998: 336). Nevertheless, even this division as shown in Annex 3, could give us an idea of the general trend in population growth. In 1953, there is a decrease in MHS. In 11 of the 19 Opojan villages there was a decrease of MHS, but an increase in the number of households in some villages. The year 1961 marks a general increase of population: even though the number of households decreased in 10 out of 18 villages, MHS increased in 13 of them. The highest MHS of all years presented was registered in the village Kapre in 1961. A 30 percent growth occurred in 1971, for example in the village Brezne with 946 inhabitants in 1961 and 1,410 in 1971, but also in Bresane from the 1,353 in 1961 to 1,861 in 1971. In the same year, there was a further increase in both the number of population and the number of households, and despite a decrease of MHS in the village Kapre, MHS increased in other villages. In the year 1981, population growth reached its peak, and so did the number of households, and except in the villages Bellobrad, Kapre and Shajne, also the number of MHS. As an illustration, in the village Blaq in 1971, the population was 797, to be increased to 1,123 in 1981. Another example is the village Bresane: having grown from 1,861 in 1971 to 2,498 inhabitants in the year 1981. In this village, also the MHS reached its peak with 11.8 members per household. The increase in the number of population and the number of household followed also in 1991, whereas MHS decreased in some villages. Meleqi managed to collect data for the year 1998 as well from the imams of Opojan villages. According to these data, the number of population kept growing, even though not as much as in 1981 and 1991 (Meleqi, 2009:113). According to preliminary results of the censuses of 2011, the MHS
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in Dragash municipality is 5.52, compared to 4.42 in Prishtina (Kosovo Agency of Statistics).8
The families in Opoja, as seen from the number of households and MHS, lived in a joint household type. There are many factors that have induced these changes, economy being one of them.
The Economic Aspect
Economy has impacted changes in the family structure, size, hierarchy and also the practices of festivities, which are important components of social life in the region. An important element in this discussion is the immigration influence in both economically but as well as socially. In the 1990s according to Reineck, the high number of male emigrants in Europe due to their economic and social marginalization abroad would re-enforce traditional values, thus resisting changes and increasing moral conservatism (Reineck 1991: 17). This meant, among others, the preservation of family with regard to size, structure and also traditional practices, perceived by Opojans as something typically Albanian. Immigration to Europe of the majority of the grown-up male population in Opoja was seen as a struggle for survival or an attempt to improve the quality of life. This has not change also after the 1999 war in Kosovo. However, at this point it is difficult to pinpoint exact factors that impact in the changes in the family in Opoja or factors that impact in the circumstances that do or do not produce change. A good start, nevertheless, would be considered an overview of past and present economic developments, which could give an impression of complexity of factors that condition family life in Opoja.
Among many challenges of transition that the Kosovo society faces, the high unem- ployment and poverty are the most difficult ones to deal with9. Kosovo’s unemployment rate is 47% (World Bank, Country Brief 2010), and the general economic growth is very low. Ac- cording to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) estimation, the level of Gross Domestic
8 The final results of the censuses will be published in September 2012.
9 According to World Bank estimations, unemployment reaches 47%, whereas 37% of the population lives with less than € 1.42 per day.
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Product (GDP) per capita is 1,731 € in 2009, whereas the Gross National Disposable Income (GNDI) per capita is 2,007 € (UNDP 2010). As expected, smaller municipalities and isolated ones such as Dragash are among the municipalities that have the highest rate of unemploy- ment - 77.33% of the Albanian population (ECMI – Ethno- political Map in Kosovo). For comparison only, Deçan in 2008 had 58% of unemployment, which increased to 67% in 2010, whereas the capital Prishtina reaches 65% (ibid)10. According to the Kosovo Statistical Office (2011), generally in Kosovo, the household’s most important income comes from the public sector. The next important source is wages from the private sector and business, whereas nearly one out of ten households lives from remittances. This estimation is different accord- ing to the UNDP's Remittance Study, which considers that nearly a fifth (19.6 %) of Kosovar households receive remittances, mostly in rural areas, and they make up approximately 40% of the total family budget (ibid).
As for the Dragash municipality in the Opoja region, I would say it is the combination of all of these, with the immigration element being the dominant one.
Agriculture
Apart from immigration, the Opojan population lived from farming and agriculture until the beginning of the political changes from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. According to Meleqi, 70% of the population is engaged in agriculture (Meleqi 2009: 180). Families in general own a small piece of land which is scattered and as such makes it difficult to apply state-of-the-art agriculture technology, which would help increase productivity and provide enough for selling on the market and not just satisfy family needs (ibid). In their meadows, villagers usually plant hay for one to three cows that they might have, and also in small gar- dens that are usually situated in the yard of the house where they live, they plant vegetables for their own daily needs like tomatoes, potatoes, onions, beans and salad. Animal husbandry was also one of the important activities of agriculture in Opoja, due to the region's excellent geographical position. However, this is no longer the case because of many reasons: the poor
10 The figures on unemployment vary depending on the sources. Therefore, these figures have to be taken as rough estimations. See also Latifi’s report, which is using a different source and has different figures.
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access of products to trade, the lack of organization in collecting the products, the lack of se- curing winter food, but also the departure of cattlemen to western countries (ibid).
Privatization of Publicly Owned Enterprises
During socialist times, until the 1990s, employment for the people in the Dragash municipality was provided mainly by publicly owned companies such as the Dratex Textile Factory, The New Enterprise Koritnik –Sharri Hotel Dragash, Sharr Prodhimi, a dairy products and sheep breeding company, etc. The Dratex factory was privatized in 2005, but started its full function in 2008, when the five Opojan shareholders rented out the factory to a Turkish company. With the increase of production, the number of employees was raised as well, to a total of 324 employees - 265 only from Opoja. From this number, 39 are women – 14 from Opoja, 22 from Prizren and 3 from Turkey; there are 265 male employees - 226 from Opoja, and 58 from Dragash, Prizren, Gora and Turkey. Nevertheless, the factory's (now called Rematex) Head of Administration, Agim Beshiri, says they would like to hire more women from Opoja as this is more of a women’s type of work. They have also consulted the Office for Gender Equality at the municipality of Dragash, about organizing meetings with women of Opoja, in order to encourage them to work in this factory. The entire production of this factory is exported to countries of the EU, such as Germany and Great Britain, and Management is already planning to start selling also in the neighboring regions such as Albania and Macedonia, including Kosovo as well. In this factory, the lowest salary is 200 Euros, the employees’ transport is paid and they are given one meal in the factory’s canteen.
As for the other big enterprise, known as Hotel Sharri, (famous during socialism) its privatization came as late as 2010. The company that won the tender during privatization of this hotel is the already known business company from Opoja ‘Meka Hallall’, which started the family business initially with a small meat processing factory in 1997, at that time the first private meat company in Kosovo. The factory got bigger and is now situated in Pllavë. When the joint household nuclearized meaning that they would not live under the same roof and the property would be divided, brothers among themselves have split the incomes, by deciding that they will each receive monthly salaries, whereas the rest they will invest back into the business.
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Today the former Hotel Sharri, now Meka Hallall is a renovated building, which houses a big grocery shop, a fast food restaurant, a hotel above the grocery shop, a restaurant for weddings and in near future will also have a textile shop. The grocery shop has 36 employees; from this number 29 are from Opoja, 16 of them are women. According to company manager Burim Pirraj, the initial salary is 220 Euros. Competition was high: around 300 people applied for 36 positions, and according to him there was no hesitancy of women to work, quite the opposite. Pirraj considers that their company helped improve not only economic conditions in Opoja but generally the economy in Kosovo. He believes that less people emigrated from Pllavë, the village where the meat factory is located, as there was no need to, because of the work places provided with the factory. The average salary in the factory is 350 Euros.
A somewhat problematic case of privatization appeared to be the dairy product and sheep breeding company ‘Sharr Prodhimi’. During the socialist era, it had 260 employees, and right after the war only 62 (OSCE 2000). However, the villagers in Bellobrad said that this factory did not work after the war. The Kosovo Private Agency's report on the year 2011 says that in this case, they have ‘faced alienation of 27,000 hectares of land without legal ground by the Dragash Municipality’ and that this issue was forwarded to the Supreme Court's Special Chamber (Agjensia Kosovare e Privatizimit, Raporti Vjetor, 2010).
Migration
The biggest flux of emigration occurred mostly in the 1990s, after the revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy, and for the young population of this region it was considered to be the only possible way of surviving (Reineck 1991). One can argue that even today, migration remains an alternative 11. The manager of the Dragash Youth Center, Jeton Qenga reiterates this and adds that young people in Opoja do not see the perspective in this region because of high unemployment and little possibilities in creating job positions in all sectors. Many of the educated ones move away from the region, mostly to Prizren and Prishtina. According to Qenga, the potential that this municipality has for tourism would create jobs, engage people in
11 See also Leutloff-Grandits' report.
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activities and would impact the general economic development of the region. To my impres- sion and observation, if people find a possibility to have a job, they would consider remaining in the village, and those already abroad, would even consider returning to their villages. This is the case of Adrian (a young man in his twenties) who after finishing high school in Austria, came back to Opoja as he and his brothers started a private business. They bought few buses and now operate lines from Opoja to Dragash, for the high school students. Adrian said that he is happier now, as he is with his family and friends and there is no need to leave the coun- try in order to survive. Faik, on the other hand (a young man in his thirties) left the village last year and joined his brother in Austria, in order to be able to build a house and live apart from his brother in a separate nuclear household. Most of the Opoja people mainly immigrated to German speaking countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Migration in Opoja start- ed very early, when during the Ottoman Empire, shepherds and mowers served in different places of the Empire (Meleqi 2009:133). During WWII, Opoja men immigrated to Albania (temporary immigration) where they worked on road construction sites, at the brick factory, and as labor workers in chiflik (Meleqi 2009: 134). After WWII, Opojans migrated also to countries of then- Yugoslavia and supported their extended families in Opoja. In 1968, the Self-governing Community of Interest for Employment in Kosovo (Bashkësia Vetëqeverisëse e Interesit për Punësim të Kosovës) organized employment in Western Europe (Meleqi, 2009: 180), and Opojans having a tradition in migration were the first ones to take this opportunity.
According to the ESI report – Cutting the cordon of life; Immigration, Family and the future of Kosovo, less than 15% of the Kosovar society receives regular incomes from emi- grants, and this percentage is decreasing (ESI, 2006: 8). This reduction is quite significant taking into consideration that rural areas, especially the Opoja region, have mainly survived with the incomes sent by emigrants in all the waves of immigration, especially during so called ‘parallel system’ in the 1990s. The support received from emigrant family members did not only include cash, but household appliances such as washing machines, hover, and other smaller kitchen equipment. It is difficult to say at this stage how much this practice has de- creased, particularly in this region12.
12 See also Leutloff- Grandits' report.
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Varieties of Joint Household and Nuclearization
The Division of Property
In Opoja and generally in Kosovo, the joint household generally nuclearizes with the division of property among brothers or as commonly known as separation -damja. Women do not take part in this division and are not part of the inheritance either, although they are legally entitled to. In the past, the separation (damja) among brothers was a big turning point for the family. Both in the past and at present, the division was done either by the brothers themselves or with a mediator or mediation (mediators are usually trusted male relatives). It is still an uneasy and emotional process for the family but compared to the time before the 1999 war, it is now approached from a more practical perspective. Traditionally, the contribution of members while living in the undivided household is not calculated, and property is usually divided equally, with solidarity going even beyond the division, but on a narrower scale than before. The reluctance to divide property in the past was also a matter of reputation of the family. The household head made efforts to hold sons together as in this way, the family would be considered stronger in face of potential threats and would easier survive economic hardships (Rrapi 1995: 95-98). In former times and following tradition, brothers usually did not divide until the father died; nowadays the division of property is rather dependent on financial conditions, i.e., on the possibility to create more living space such as houses for each conjugal unit. However, there are accounts from the past that a son expressed the wish to his father and brothers to move to Prizren for better future perspectives. In such a case, the brothers remaining in the village could remain living together, but divided the hise (share of property for each son) only for him. There were and still are cases when the son moves to the capital city as a student, finds a job and remains in Prishtina. Very often when settled well in Prishtina, they do not claim their hise.
Traditionally the house, in which all brothers live together with their parents and families, becomes property of the youngest son after separation (damja) as the parents would live with him and his family. However, this is no longer a rule, and it is subject to appropriation, depending on the circumstances. In one of the interviews, the interviewee (42), the oldest son in the family and father of three children said, ‘parents can decide with which son they want to stay. It is up to them to decide, it is not necessarily the youngest
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one…sometimes property is not divided in equal parts but more is given to the son with whom the parents stay and this is not really good as sometimes this influences the relationship with the parents’. While brothers lived together, traditionally it was the father who controlled the family budget. When the father died, it was the oldest brother who would control the budget and in a way take over the role of the father. This has changed to a certain extent. In many cases, it is now the mother who keeps the budget and distributes the money to nuclear or conjugal units as needed. However, there are cases where sons do keep a certain amount for their own family and give the rest to the father or mother, or even elder brother – whoever is in charge of the family budget. In cases of in-married women, if they receive money from their parental family, they are not obliged to share it with others. However, under poor economic circumstance, women support their own family. This is the same with money that women could earn by selling their needle-hand-work.
While in the past, sons were mainly shepherds, but later on in the 1970s and 1980s, had jobs in the public sector as well, nowadays the variety of incomes is even more diverse. Sources of income for a family, apart from remittances and public sector wages, are generated also through privately owned companies or small businesses, which contribute to the overall family budget but could just as well be the only one. This variety could be considered also one of the factors responsible for the quicker division of property, as the size of incomes of the various bread winners in the joint family household is not necessarily the same. The spread of joint household was both vertical and horizontal, whereas today my impression is that the joint households are more of a vertical nature.13
Varieties of joint households
In Opoja, although very rare, there are still families with various married couples that live in a joint undivided property household. The 74-year-old head of a 30-member household A.S. considers that one of the reasons that his family remains still a joint household is the fact that his five sons and his brother, earn similarly and there is no one in the family that lives or works abroad. A household member who has emigrated would earn more money than the rest
13 See also Latifi’s report.
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staying at home – a fact which could destabilize the family order and equality. A.S. also emphasized that there is still harmony between the members of a joint household, an element that is considered crucial to maintaining the joint household. A.S. does not remember to have witnessed a separation and division of property in his family and my impression was that there is still no intention to split property even now. The family budget is not administered by him as the head of household and the oldest one, but this task is given to one of the sons who is economist and works with the Tax Administration in Dragash. Therefore, said A.S., he was thought to be the person best suitable to assume this task. Everyone would deliver what they earn by the end of the month to him while saving a share that they need for their own family unit. In cases of bigger family undertakings such as buying or selling immovable property, a meeting is held and decision is brought together with adult males of the household – three brothers and five sons of the eldest brother. Another element that adds to this variety of joint household life is the fact that one of the brothers lives separately in Prizren due to his professional engagements and visits the village and his brothers with his family almost every weekend. His house in the village is not situated in the yard where his brothers have their houses but outside of the yard and further away in the village. However, he and his family are still considered to be part of the joint household, as the immovable property is not divided yet, at least not formally.
Another family that was considered to have been one of the biggest joint households in Opoja, consisting of 56 members, has been divided shortly before the war, but the seven brothers still kept the joint family business together – the pastry shop. Three of the seven brothers, as well as their sons and nephews, work in the family business, three weeks each. The incomes are divided by the end of the third week into 7 parts. However, a detailed interview has to be conducted with one of the employees in the shop in order to figure out how the incomes are divided into 7 parts, and according to which criteria. How was life in the joint household? How did separation happen? etc.
Going back to Laslett's elaboration on joint households or multiple households, he includes in this definition all forms of domestic groups, which are selected under the following criteria: the locational one (members sleep habitually under the same roof), the functional one (they share a number of activities) and kinship (members are related to each other by blood or by marriage) (Laslett, 1972: 24-25). In the past, all three forms of domestic
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groups made up the joint household, whereas today, the first two (locational and functional) seem to vary depending on economic situations, but also on the relationship between members in the household. Incorporating here the migration element, one has to briefly mention also fragmentation. After the war in Kosovo, a large number of emigrants that lived abroad could take their families with them14. In these cases, there was some sort of a more natural fragmentation of joint households in the village. This fragmentation could also be physical and temporary one, as during the summer many of the emigrant families go back to living in joint households in the house in the village where the rest of family lives (brothers, parents). In addition, emigrants send remittances to family members who remained in the village and other material things.
Family type, formerly defined as Corporate
When talking about changes in the joint household type today, I would like to refer to Reineck's argument in defining family in the 1990s. She stated that "The family is a corporate group par excellence: the property is held in common, the group acts as one body in the face of disputes with outsiders, there is a leader who represents the group to other groups (zoti i shpisë), all the members are to outsiders 'jurally equal’ and the structure has in a sense, a life of its own, independent of the members." (Reineck, 1991:55). By now, in Opoja, there are significant changes. In the above paragraphs, the changes regarding property divisions that have led to the decrease of MHS but have also impacted the type of family are already explained. As for the other part of Reineck’s observation, one would first ask who is an ‘outsider’ in the case of Opoja. If we were to agree that outsiders could be considered those who could pose a threat, in some rural areas of Kosovo, this threat came from the blood feuds that took place within the village. In discussing what kept the corporate family still alive, Rrapi considered several factors: the economic, demographic, ethno-psychological, security and defense factors and the employment of women (Rrapi, 1995: 96-98). As far as the security and defense factor or the ‘outsider’ is concerned, Rrapi argues that in the past, the
14 See Leutloff–Grandits' project report on migration and family relations.
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threat came from disputes among brotherhood and clans, but also from kaqaks15, the outlaws and time to time even from state authorities (Rrapi, 1995: 96). In this regard and talking about the 1990s, when Reineck researched, having in mind that Opoja was never characterized by blood feuds among clans, threat was perceived to come from the socialist state. Just like in other regions in Kosovo, the state was not always considered to be the problem solver in Opoja either, but rather the source of problems. If a family member was involved in politics in the past, persecution would still persist and the family was under surveillance. In Opoja, in the village Bellobrad, one of the families from Qafleshi mahalla had to change their last name to Bahtjari after WWII in order to escape further persecution by the then regime. Cases of persecution and punishments happened even later, when participation in demonstrations was already highly punishable. Muharrem Qafleshi, a historian from Opoja, was among the students that were expelled from the Medical Faculty because they participated in the student demonstrations of 1981. Gjanie Hulaj Berisha, now living in Prishtina for 25 years, and her friend are two further cases of this pressure. When Gjanie was about to marry in 1984, she prepared a tapestry of the Albanian flag, apart from other things, for her dowry16. On the day of her marriage, when her husband’s family arrived with cars to fetch her, the flag that she made was put on the roof of the car in which she sat, known as the bride’s car (kerri i nuses), which is usually decorated more than the other cars. Shortly thereafter, the village meeting was called with Komiteti (Socialist Committee) and the issue of the flag was discussed. A teacher from the village intervened and Gjanie was spared interrogation or punishment by the authorities. Several months after her wedding, her friend Mesnete, followed her example. Unfortunately, her case was not as easy as Gjanie’s. Reported to authorities by local villagers loyal to regime, Mesnete was arrested and kept in prison for one month, and her husband was even badly beaten.
If we agree with the above-mentioned factors described by Rrapi and also by Reineck, now that threat no longer exists after the last war, we could consider that this would be an
15 Kachaks, in short were considered by Serbia as rebels and outlaws who were looters and thieves. However, according to historian Noel Malcolm, the Kachak was also a political phenomenon that fought against Serbian rule (Noel Malcolm 1998: 276 – 300).
16 In Kosovo the practice of dowry is both direct and indirect. In Opoja, however, to my observation, the dowry is mainly indirect, meaning that the groom’s family buys presents to the bride (mainly bride clothes) but also threads and other materials through which she does the embroidery clothes and decorative crochets.
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element that would impact the nuclearization of families. However, even after nuclearization, in times of crisis, especially of economic ones, family solidarity is strengthened and the social network comprises the family and kinship ties.
As far as decision-making concerns, the zoti i shpisë, (head of household) both in joint and nuclear household still has the power and the last say. However, in both types of families, the decision might be brought together with women but according to my observation, decisions are voiced jointly only in nuclear families. Before the war, when life was very isolated and simple, it was easy for the patriarch's authority to be firm and to stretch to all members and spheres of life. Nowadays, the possibility to move more freely and the higher education of young women and men have managed to shake the firm ground of male authority, but this is only true in comparison to the period before the war, as men still hold the power in family matters as well as broadly in the public sphere.
The employment of women would be a factor, among other previously mentioned ones, which could lead to dividing property, thus in the nuclearization of a joint household. Having two salaries (of both husband and wife) allows a better adjustment of the living spaces and choices in arrangements concerning everyday life. Such is the case of Afërdita. Both her and her husband work. A mother of three, with the oldest daughter being 19 years old, Afërdita is working in the village school and attending lectures at the Faculty of Law in Prizren, a branch of Prishtina University. Due to this daily engagement, Afërdita is now less present in the village women’s social life, which, briefly described, consists of family visits and wedding festivities. On winter afternoons, women visit other women of the mahalla, and do the needle-work of embroidery together, whereas in the summer, they participate in weddings of their family and relatives.
Care –giving
Nuclearization is also related to care-giving. The state plays a role in providing kindergarten for children and houses for the elderly. In the Opoja region, but also in Dragash, there is no kindergarten. For a nuclear family, where both parents work outside of the house and have little children it is difficult or simply not possible to find a caregiver. Due to the
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family type, there was no need for the establishment of paid jobs for babysitters or cleaning ladies. In this regard, grandmothers play a significant role as caregivers. Unlike in Western Europe, where the emerging institution of elderly people as caregivers – the grandmother - is considered a discovery (Segalen 2010: 255), in Kosovo, this was always the case, both in the past and now. In a joint household, the eldest woman is the mistress of the house, and apart from organizing the household work of other women, she also takes care of the children during the day. Yet at the same time, the non-existence of public daycare centers for children keeps the household a joint one, although not necessarily with many conjugal units but rather with a couple with children and in-laws.
Both in Opoja and in Prishtina (in my social circle), I have observed a practice where grandmothers provide caregiving also to transnational families. There are cases where grandmothers travel to Europe or the US, for a short period to assist their daughters or daughter-in-laws with their newborn babies. Or, even for longer periods of six months, to take care of other children, in cases where both parents work. In this case, if we were to argue that in the past children had an economic value, as they would in return take care of their parents and financially support them when they get old, it is now after the war also the parents, when they become grandparents, that also have a sort of economic value to transnational families as they provide care-giving for their children. As far as elder people are concerned, there are no privately or publicly owned old people's homes in the Opoja region, or in Dragash. According to my information, there is only one public house for elder people in Prishtina. Furthermore, even if these types of houses for the elderly existed, it would be considered as a great shame to take one's parents there. By and large in Kosovo, it is considered to be an unquestionable moral duty to take care of one's parents. Refusing to do so would be labeled a betrayal of family values. Accounts on this aspect are to be found elsewhere as well, e.g., in Croatia (Leutloff-Grandits, Birt and Rubić 2010).
Traditional Values Prevailing - Generational Views on Changes in the Family
Changes in the family type and family relations in Opoja are viewed from different angles. Although not generationally characteristic, interesting accounts seem to come to surface, especially when talking about marriage and weddings.
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Arsim (age 23) believes that compared to other regions in Kosovo, family order has not been changed in Opoja and that they have managed to preserve traditional values. However, opinions vary but are not typical of a given generation. E.M., 56, retired, said that in former times there was more respect in the community: ‘we were respected by the youngsters…’.Regardless of the difficulties of poverty in the past that E.M. was describing, he still spoke with nostalgia, pointing out that in the past, everybody knew his role, whereas now everything is confused.
Certainly, older women that I have been able to converse with, cherish more the changes after the war, as to an extent they believe that family life has become easier for women. When talking with women, the economic factor seemed to be the condition for improving or not improving the quality of life. In the past, before the 1980s, women also had to work in the fields in addition to household work. N.B. (82), recalls:
‘Women's work at that time was heavy: they cleaned, washed, cooked. Work (within the household) was done in three–day-units; they also plowed the earth and chopped wood for three days. They had to wake up at five in the morning and went to bed at ten in the evening. They also did handwork: socks, underwear, vests, and also made patches for the ripped clothes. There were thirty family members …Girls made their dowry by weaving the linen in the hand loom (vek) …Women worked in the field even during pregnancy and some of them happened to deliver in the field… forty days afterwards, these women did not work at all. We had lot of kids…Poverty makes lots of kids’.
Many of these described duties have changed since the 1980s, but mostly after the war. Some of the described works are seen primarily as the duty of men, such as plowing and chopping woods. Pregnant women are spared heavy jobs and are taken care of. Young women buy many things for their dowry but still do the decorative part themselves such as for example the embroidery in most of the cases. In this context, I would like to mention that driven by the emic perspective, marriage and weddings seem to contain an important part of social life in Opoja. However, they are seen differently.
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Marriage; Girls as Hostages of Moral Conservatism.
To my impression, the issue that hasn’t been affected by change in Opoja is the imperative of marriage. It is not an open question, to be defined as ‘to marry or not to marry’. It is rather an underlying must. I would say this is also the case in other rural areas but it is being questioned more in urban contexts. What did not change either is the practice of the ‘exchange of women’ (martesa e dyfishte) (Reineck 1991: 70). Even though I haven't heard the term per se while being in Opoja, I have seen the practice in almost all families I have visited.17 Martesa e dyfishtë is still favored as a way to stability in marriage but also to maintaining friendships and alliances - miqasi - between families. I will use Reineck's words to describe this practice: ‘…a woman of one patriline is given to another patriline and at some later time one of the women is given back to the first group’. (ibid).
In Opoja, however, views on marriage practices vary. The 74-year-old A.S. says that it is much better now that younger generations choose their partners themselves, compared to the prevailing practice in his youth, where parents or relatives would decide about the partner and the couple would see each other for the first time on the day of marriage. Unlike him, his son believes that in the past at least there was an element of security there as families had trust in each other. In support of his views, the son refers to the number of divorces that increased after the war. From Reineck's accounts, this was one of the elements that made the arranged marriage still prevail in the 1990s (Reineck 1991: 71). Today, with the increasing number of educated young people, there is less space for arranged marriage. Young people of Opoja mostly meet at school in Dragash or during the village festivities. Some of them date each other secretly for a while and by the end of high school, they tell their parents and in some cases, they marry as soon as school has finished. I would be more inclined to say that today there is match-making, rather than marriages arranged by families. However, I would need more evidence to support this impression. What I mean by matchmaking is that the couples get introduced by friends and close relatives mainly of the same age, whereas to parents the relationship would be announced once the couple has decided to marry each other.18 This is
17 For an elaborated discussion and findings on marriage (exogamy, endogamy, and exchange of women), see Reineck p. 66 – 71.
18 Dr. Leutloff-Grandits writes also on marriage arrangements, see her report.
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the case of Suferina (22), who met her boyfriend in school and married him soon after she had graduated. Rina, who only finished primary school, had a relative from the village who mediated her marriage. He suggested the potential husband to Rina's family first, then the families of the couple met, and only after that Rina and the suggested husband would meet in the mediator’s house. When I asked her why they did not meet in some café, Rina said ‘because, in case it wouldn’t work out, I did not want to be seen with him… people here talk as soon as they see you with someone’. In this regard, there is a difference in what the surrounding - which makes the public opinion rrethi - expects from girls with higher education compared to those with primary education only. Also, educated girls have different expectations on marriage and dating. Fatmira, a Prishtina University student on her third year, tells about dating practices. She says that very often, when there is no match-making, a guy calls a girl on the phone and after talking for a while they decide to meet. Fatmira says, ‘I hate to be called on the phone. He can see me everywhere and he can approach me directly’. Girls of the village are feared to become the subject of gossiping in the village. The father of Majlinda, who just finished high school, when talking about his children's marriage, said, ‘It is more difficult for me with my daughters than with my son…I have told her, how you behave, people will see, and you will find the place’, meaning that if the girl is behaving properly, she will increase the probability of marrying the right person from the right family. The issue of marriage, which for Opojans marks the life of an individual, is seen differently even within one family. The differences concern the age of marriage and the couple's ambitions with regard to education. For example, Selvije (19) is engaged but wants to continue her studies, whereas her sister Miranda (14) does not want to continue school but rather marry in the near future and start a family.
Just like in the past, the Opojan family still remains compact and has not changed on some levels, such as the importance that Opojans still attach to marriage and weddings, as well as the rite de passage like circumcision. Viewed from the outside, marriage customs during the wedding, still prevalent in the villages of Opoja, seem to be hard to bear and to burden the family budget. Weddings are long and costly. However, compared to former times, until the mid-1990s, weddings were organized with all families of the village and lasted a week. With the worsening of the political situation, and also due to poor economic conditions, wedding ceremonies were reduced to three days and organized with the mahalla. In a place such as Opoja that is rather isolated, apart from the entertaining element especially
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for young people, weddings also impact the maintenance of cohesion within the mahalla or village. The invited guests are relatives from both the mother's and the father's side and friends of family. The invitation for a wedding represents an honor and respect from the side of the family celebrating the wedding.
Villagers say that the costs of marriage are very high, both in the case of weddings and for the circumcision festivity. Here, Opojan emigrants play a role; once they are back in the village, still represent some sort of social authority. Because of their economically privileged status in the village, they could be considered as agents of change but also as agents of preservation of some customs, especially with regard to weddings. I am tempted to say that returning emigrants somehow claim their participation in village life by carrying out certain marriage festivity practices, but also feed their nostalgic sentiments of life and memories of their early youth in the village. The villagers in a way feel that they should follow the trend, usually set by emigrants.
The word for wedding festivity is dasma, and for circumcision, it is expressed the same - dasma, or dasma of circumcision, as the importance and the costs are approximately the same as for weddings. Men, as the main providers for families, although they complain that costs are high, still try hard to organize a wedding ceremony for their sons, as in a way they consider it as moral obligation of the father in order for his son not be distinguished from the rest of other village guys that married and had a wedding banquet. Apart from food for the guests, a sheep or a cow is sacrificed to provide the meat, the cook is paid to prepare the food and the people who play lodrat (folklore drums) together with zurla (the woodwind instrument) are paid. In some cases, food is prepared by the women of the household. However, these are the minimum costs for a wedding, which would go from 2,000 to 3,000 Euros, without counting the bride's dowry, which is mainly paid by the husband or his family.
After the war, there are more and more families in Opoja who can afford, apart from the wedding party at the house, to organize a banquet in a restaurant or a hotel. However, in my observation, there is an increasing tendency among young educated people for changes in the current practices. In many cases, they set a personal example, which impacts the social order of the village and especially the related traditional customs. Furthermore, this allows
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others to justify in front of their parents why they prefer to have a wedding banquet only instead of going through weddings customs.
Alban (24) married a girl from a different region, and both of them still live in his village and work in Dragash. Both being educated and employed, they did not follow all norms related to marriage and wedding. They had a wedding but way more reduced both in terms of expenses and in rituals than it is generally the case with weddings in Opoja.
The wedding festivities and customs also vary on a gender basis. Just like in the past, the marriage of a daughter is significantly less expensive as the husband's family is expected to organize the wedding. Generally, the marriage of a daughter is not celebrated as her departure to her husband’s house and family, to a different kin, which in most cases is outside of her village; it is seen with sadness and in many cases, experienced the same way by her as well. One day before the marriage, the bride usually invites female friends and relatives, where they can see the dowry that she made and the clothes that the husband’s family has bought. Zana (27), an economist working in Prizren, did break these practices, when she invited male and female friends and colleagues from work to her bachelorette party (kanagjeq) and celebrated her marriage. The inclusion of men in this party and celebration certainly was not viewed in a positive light by everyone in the mahalla or even village.
The day when the daughter marries, the parental family organizes a lunch for close family members, relatives and friends of their daughter. The husband's family come with decorated cars, sing songs and dance and fetch the bride. The daughter's departure (percjellja e vajzes), is followed with sadness and tears, especially by her mother, sisters or friends. In Zana's case, some of her sisters did not express sadness as they have a different understanding of marriage. Their rationale was that Zana has chosen her partner herself, they fell in love and it is a happy day. However, women of the mahalla were somewhat surprised and said, ‘they did not cry, they just smiled’.
After the arrival to the husband’s family, the bride is expected to respect several traditional rituals that expose her beauty and propriety. In many cases, especially with educated couples, the bride does the minimum of these rituals.
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Alban, a father of two children by now, considers the practices of these traditions as unnecessary but instead of fighting them, him and his wife just do not live under these rules and intend to move to Prizren or Prishtina. When Alban married, the wedding ceremony lasted one day and was pretty much reduced to customs that the bride is supposed to follow. Arsim, when he got married, did not organize a wedding at all. Blerim, 23 years old, recalls that when he got married, he decided not to respect some of the traditional practices of marriage, thus turned against his parents in this regard, which has affected also his relationship with them. Zanita (17), high school student said when she marries she does not want to have lodra (the drums) but she prefers to take the money and spend it on her honeymoon. Unlike Zanita, Egzona (19) sees the celebration of marriage as crucial, and says ‘the wedding is wedding and it has to be with lodra as one marries only once’.
Young people in Opoja, to some extent do resist some of the traditional customs, but in many cases they are also selective. They might adhere to some customs and leave out many others. This compromise sometimes is done in order not to affect the relationship with the parents and the rest of the family. However, there are customs and rituals that young people find entertaining, such as the folklore music played by lodra and zurla, but also the dances. By many, they also represent the richest elements of Albanian folk culture.
Women's Position Depending on Education, Economy and Tradition (Inheritance)
The issues dealt with in this section need to be further explored when looking more closely at family life in this region and social security. Precisely, apart from the existence of a legal framework of benefits and beneficiaries of social assistance, health insurance and pensions, extensive research needs to be conducted step by step on their implementation in the ground. From my general understanding, I could say so far that economic security is to be found mainly in the private domain, in the family, but in many regards it oscillates also between family and state, through pensions and social welfare categories. Both being uncertain and not being able to give full protection and security to individuals. Where this oscillation becomes difficult to bear is in the cases of marginalized groups, such as women, old people and people with limited abilities. On the other hand, the fragile state and poor
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 30
economy leaves less space for people to break through traditional norms perpetuated through family, but they rather depend on them.
As described in above sections, there are numerous factors that impact family life such as elements of tradition, economy and state, as well as education, which are closely interwoven. In this regard I am convinced that understanding how these elements work and how they are involved on resolving issues that burden especially the life of marginalized people, could give us a broader understanding on how change occurs in family and, on a broader level, in society and what is currently at stake in relation to social security. In this report, I am giving the first glimpses of this issue, as it has to be researched further and deeper from both micro and macro level.
Being the first cycle of socialization, just like in other parts of Kosovo, family shapes gender roles rather than the state's efforts with several laws that are supposed to ensure gender equality - the latter is not significantly achieved. Outside of the family, gender stereotypes especially with regard to the gender-related division of labor, are further re-enforced through school text books (KGSC Audit of the Gender Issue in the Education System, 2007). The poem in the Albanian Language, taken from a book used in the sixth grade of primary school, might give an illustration on both how family is perceived and how the gender division of labor within family is being described, consequently gender roles.
Familja Family
Familja na bën të ndihemi të qetë, të sigurtë Family makes us feel calm, dhe të gëzuar. safe and happy. Babi, nëna, vëllau apo motra, janë njerzit, Father, mother, brother and sister që na ndihmojë më shumë are people that help us the most to për të realizuar gjërat që dëshirojmë. realize things that we like. Prej tyre ne kemi gjithçka që na nevojitet From them we have everything that në jetën e përditshme. we need in our daily life. Anëtarët e familjes kryejnë shumë punë The members of family do a lot of work në shtëpi. in the house. Ata kujdesen për njëri tjetrin, They take care of each other, për pajisjet shtëpiake, for the house equipment, për ushqim, për argëtim dhe për çlodhjen. for food, entertainment and resting. Një ditë në familje është e lidhur me shumë One day in the family is connected to veprimtari që e krijojnë anëtarët e familjes. activities that family members create. Nëna merret me punët e shtëpisë, Mother does the house work, babai punon kopshtin, father works in the garden,
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 31
vëllau është duke mësuar, brother is studying, motra duke parë TV, sister is watching TV, gjyshja duke thurrur triko, grandmother is knitting, gjyshi duke lexuar gazetën. grandfather is reading the newspaper. Ju uleni për të drekuar në tryezë You sit around the table to have lunch dhe nuk harroni për të treguar për gjërat and you don’t forget to tell about kanë bërë përshtypje. things that made an impression on you. Gjatë ditës, ju dëgjoni njëri tjetrin During the day, you listen to each other ndjeheni të gëzuar që keni një familje and you feel happy that you have a që ju do dhe ju respekton. family that loves you and respects you.
Traditional gender roles are reinforced in any sphere in society. In this environment where cycles of socialization do not empower girls and women, the independence of women requires great personal strength but also a change of the gender-related stereotypes in the public opinion.
Nevertheless, education is the first important step. Having in mind the economic setting, in Opoja, the chances for women to be employed are scarce, even for those with higher education (high school). However, both in Opoja and Dragash, people talk about the increasing number of women that continue education, compared to 1990. This has to be further researched, as in 1990 a branch of the Prizren medical school was established in the village Bresane. This has increased the number of young women attending high school. After the war, this branch seized to exist and young women from Opoja now have to commute to Prizren to attend medical high school. However, generally speaking, education infrastructure has improved to a greater degree. The director of the Education Department in the municipality of Dragash says that ‘before the war there were no pre-school units in the municipality of Dragash and the existing schools were in a very bad condition. Now, there are 18 pre-school units, 12 primary schools and 23 so-called satellite schools and one high school. Also, before the war, there were no units for kids with special needs, now there is a unit in the school of Bresane village’.
Yet again, parents in cases of poor economic condition still prefer the education of sons to that of daughters. In 1990, Reineck wrote that the reason not to invest in women’s education was the lack of future perspectives to find a job, poor economic conditions or the parents' moral conservatism (Reineck 1991: 169 -181). According to my observation, this hasn’t change much, although I think that it is more the economic factor that hinders the
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 32
higher education of girls. This is what also a retired village teacher believes, who said that ‘it is the economic conditions that are the obstacles to financing a daughter's higher university education and not religious fanaticism’. His son Pajazit (43) elaborates it more: ‘We do everything possible, even when we have no financial condition to send the son to University, because we consider him of this place, the tradition, he is the follower, whereas girls, they don’t find a job afterwards and they don’t go (to school). Perhaps there is someone who sends the girl to school but me, as for now, if I had a daughter, I would not do it. The girl will get married; she will find a place (meaning the husband's family) …whereas the son is the heir of my house (meaning family), he should be sent, but it is also because of the money that I cannot take her (the daughter)…’
With regard to inheritance or to dividing property in general, although women are le- gally entitled to the share of inheritance (hise), it is considered that when they marry, they join the property of their husbands. In most of the cases, brothers formally offer their sister a share of property, meaning that when the division happens, brothers may invite sisters to this gath- ering, but sisters usually declare that they do not want to take what they call the ‘hisen e vllaut’ (brother’s share). Such is the case of Gjeraldina. Although her father who worked abroad, left the two flats in Prishtina by will to all his children including the daughters, when the decision was to be made who would be legally and practically entitled to the flats, Gjeraldina and her sisters declared that they will not partake in the hise of flats. When asked why, Gjeraldina smiled and said, ‘well, just couldn’t...did not want to make my brothers sad’. Then she sad ‘maybe they would not express it but in their heart they could be sad…it is not a custom for us sisters to take part in the hise’. From a research that I conducted on this topic in 2002 as a Prishtina University student, I have found out that in claiming their right to proper- ty, women fear that it would ruin the relationship with their brothers and in return they will not be able to pay a visit as traditionally married daughter do – pay a visit to the parents' house, or to the brother after the parent has died, together with the children, for a week or more, more than twice a year. Also their environment (rrethi) would judge them, both in ur- ban and rural areas19.
19 The research was part of the course on Research Methods at the University of Prishtina, taught by Prof. Lynne Alice. (see Prof. Lynne Alice at After Communism: Critical Perspectives on Society and Sociology by Carol Harrington and Ayman Salem –
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 33
In my observation, Opojans in general are religious, in some villages more than in others. According to Islam, a woman should inherit the half of what her brother inherits. However, Opojans, although in some cases unconsciously, follow the customary law – Kanun, which does not give the right to women to inherit property. Let me insert an excerpt from a group interview in Opoja:
‘The researcher: Do daughters or sisters inherit a property? Artan: ‘naah not really, the tradition for Albanians in general is... Berat interrupts his brother and laughs: ‘only if she asks for it.’ Artan: ‘…and we don’t give them…according to the law she has a right to take part in property division…they declare themselves in front of the court that they leave the wealth to the brother.’ Berat again laughing: ‘they covet it a bit to take something from this property.’ Artan: ‘Yes, they wish to take something but what to take, if they do, they cannot enter through father’s door anymore.’ Luli - the neighbor: ‘That would have been the same in a way because then our wives could take from the other side’ [meaning that their wives would request a part of property from their parental family]…’but generally women never take any property’. The researcher: But what if a woman claims her part that she is entitled to? Artan: ‘…then she enters in hise…’ (the word in Albanian for the share of property). Berat: ‘Tt is the tradition but also we covet that… and then he continues: ‘the piece of land that is given to the sister we call that Miraz, …that is like a cursed part, if something bad happens then people say –but of course, he took that as Miraz’.
By saying ‘he’ Berat refers to the sister’s husband, as it is considered that in cases where property is given to the daughter / sister, it is practically not her that that enjoys it and has decision-making power over that property but her husband. Gezim from Opoja, living in Prishtina says that even if women inherited property, be- cause they go to their husband (patrilocal), they would not be able to make use of the inherit- ed property. In order to make use of that property, they would have to move to the parental village, which mean bring her family (husband and kids), in which case the kinship reconfigu- ration would be harmed. The reason is that the villages of Opoja are divided in mahalla,
http://books.google.com/books?id=fNejIRHgCyIC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=Elife+Krasniqi+student&sour ce=bl&ots=jvqE53WzCJ&sig=1Uyttb3k6gjctY3h9Ap8rPrms58&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JfsaUIy3O8yL4gTO4oHYA Q&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Elife%20Krasniqi%20student&f=false)
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 34
which mainly are made of patrilineal blood related families. Gezim adds that if women inherit land, the problem remains in the fact that the land does not have economic value anymore. As for houses, even if women inherited a house and wanted to sell it, Gezim and a few other vil- lagers said that in Opoja nobody sells houses. However, I have encountered practices of sell- ing the houses, although very rare. Regardless of these circumstances, it goes without saying that owning a property would give women more social security, even though the possibilities to utilize it in a form that would be beneficial for her are scarce.
In Kosovo, only 8% of women own property (United Nation Development Program UNDP 2004: 12), whereas the unemployment rate is 56% for women, compared to 41% among men (Agjensia e Statistikave në Kosovë: Gratë dhe Burrat në Kosovë 2010). These figures show that women are economically dependent on their families. On the other hand, since Kosovo is not a welfare state, its citizens benefit from the private transfers, which main- ly occur inter-vivo, within the family (Kohli, 1999:85).
To wrap up this section I could say that the generally poor economic condition makes parents favor the education of sons and not their daughters'. The rationale behind these painful decisions is that the daughters get married and sons remain in the family so that the investments can be returned. The poor education of women creates the obstacles to potential employment in the public sector and less in the private one, but also traditional conservatism, where the issue of women inheriting still remains unchanged and stuck in traditional conservatism. Women seem to be very much economically dependent and it is the family which is considered to be the main provider of economic security. Even in cases of pensions or assistance for socially marginalized groups, the amount provided by the state is really low so that an individual can hardly survive, let alone a family. Therefore, women's independence and social security remains the hostage of poor economic condition, scarce opportunities for employment and traditional conservatism. In a fragile economy, especially in the case of Opoja but generally also in Kosovo, where women by and large are economically dependent, the general state infrastructure that should protect women and help to advance their position is poor. Here I mean that existing laws against gender-based discrimination, in many regards are appropriated to circumstances and traditional norms and values, which leave women torn between social security that they find in family and the social security that state should provide.
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 35
Conclusions
Although it is difficult to give certain conclusions at this stage of research, instead I will provide a summary of the above text.
As stated in the introduction, my aim for this report was to share the preliminary findings of my research that has focused on changes in the household type, changes in gender roles and relations within family, viewed as a consequence of a fragile economy and state. My account was given mostly from the micro- and midlevel of research.
The methodology used for this research is Grounded Theory, which has its challenges of being aware of emic perspectives, which, as I have often found, were inter-mingled with my own ones. This is because researching in one's home country, especially in one with political struggles and instability, one certainly risks falling in the trap of the so-called ‘home blind’. However, I believe that a significant progress was made on the second stage, by becoming more aware of issues that are at stake in the family life in Opoja. At the same time, after this stage, I have been able to formulate hypotheses, which will be tested on the third and final stage of the research. During my stay in the village of Opoja where I conducted my research, I have tried to observe first changes in the household type having in mind the writings of Janet Reineck.
Opoja, by and large was a region where the joint household dominated. Reineck has defined it as the 'corporate family'. Two decades after, one cannot come to a certain definition regarding the prevailing type of family in Opoja. What one can see is that even in the joint households, there are significant changes that occurred due to different factors. Today, the decisive factors for the joint household are diverse and depend, from my point of view, not so much on cultural traits and tradition, but primarily and foremost on economic conditions.
There are plenty of factors that are responsible for the breaking apart of a joint household. Division of property is the act where the household made up of several brothers and their families break into nuclear families that will live in separate houses. While in the past, this major event for the family was prolonged due to many factors that Rrapi has described (see p. 21), I have observed that nowadays it is the economic factor that predominantly influences the division of property, hence the splitting of brothers. Seeing the
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 36
MHS in Opoja, which according to preliminary results of censuses, has decreased, but also living in the village in Opoja for a while, the period of time of families living together is much shorter than it was in the past. This gave me the impression that that there is an increasing tendency of nuclearization. However, this has to be further researched.
What I have found interesting, however, were the elements that define a joint household today. There are few varieties as I have explained on pages 19/20, and as described by Laslett's definition of domestic groups. Apparently, in case of Opoja, only the criteria of kinship are common and have not changed, whereas others like functional and locational criteria seem to vary.
The decrease of the joint household type in Opoja and the increase in the number of nuclear families also depends on the state's infrastructure for care-giving. In this context, the family is seen as the primary care-giver, concretely the grandmothers, in cases where mothers work outside of house.
Driven from the emic perspective, marriage and weddings seem to be important elements of family and social life in Opoja. However, several things have changed, for example on the symbolical level of customs in marriage and wedding, yet not on the level of choices. What I mean here is that marriage is considered a must. Weddings and circumcision festivities induce high costs that burden the family budget. However, this applies only to a son's marriage and not for a daughter's.
Generally speaking, there is disparity in gender roles and rights, even though educated young women and young people in general seem to be influencing these issues by serving as personal examples. Compared to the 1990s, education is now more accessible for women, although it is still highly dependent on economic conditions. Even when women have higher education (high school), traditional conservatism is another aspect that hinders employment and the general elevation of women’s right and independence.
I have first tried to give an impression of changes in the household type, at the same time by describing causes and factors to change. My intention was to show from this perspective that the Opojan family is in fluctuation, as can be seen in different practices and changes of customs. Looking at it from the social security perspective, family has
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 37
traditionally provided social security. Now with the fluctuation of customs and practices, and coupled with economic hardship, the family in many cases can no longer be the sole provider of security. However, this issue is difficult to be seen in Opoja, as to my impression, the family still remains the main provider of social security. On the other hand, and viewed from the public perspective, Kosovo as a state has laws in place which, when fully implemented, would secure the individual a better and safer life. This discussion raises questions such as which direction Kosovo state is going in relation to social welfare policies. To my knowledge, the Law on Social Security has been passed but its implementation will start this year (this information needs to be confirmed). In Opoja, families still rely on private family transfers, thus maintaining solidarity. Women are not included in inheritance, have poor education compared to men and are economically dependent on their families.
Finally, I would say that family in Opoja is in a constant change, and further in-depth research still needs to be conducted including a day-to-day link with economy and state laws.
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 38
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Annex 1: Map of former Yugoslavia (taken and re-drawn from Reineck's dissertation)
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Annex 2: Kosovo map (taken from Reineck's dissertation, note the name of Mitrovica was changed into the current name 'Mitrovica' from ‘Kosovska Mitrovica' in Reineck's dissertation)
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 45
Annex 3: The number of population, households and MHS in Kosovo from 1948 - 1991
Eli Krasniqi, Centre for Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz 46