JOMEC Journal Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Published by Cardiff University Press

‘Schatzi’: Making Meaning of Diaspora

Dafina Paca

Cardiff University Email: [email protected]

Keywords diaspora identity homeland discourse belonging exclusion

Abstract

Diasporas have been widely studied since the late 1980s, especially focusing on identity, reception and integration in host societies. However, research exploring the relationship of diasporas with their homelands and, in particular, how homelands view and think about their diasporas is still developing. This article explores the discursive construction and representation of the Kosovo by homeland Kosovo by critically engaging with responses to thirteen semi-structured interviews with Kosovan Albanians in Kosovo. The discourse of the ‘Schatzi’ is examined as a stereotype employed in narratives about diasporic Kosovo Albanian identity in relation to the homeland. The article demonstrates that dominant discourses of ‘othering’ surrounding migration, identity, cultural difference and national narratives of belonging and exclusion are not exclusive to host country contexts – suggesting that we must explore outside the normative paradigms of studying diaspora within host societies.

Contributor Note

Dafina Paca is currently in the final stages of completing her PhD thesis at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Her research explores the discursive construction of diasporic identity by in Kosovo and the UK.

Citation

Paca, Dafina (2015), ‘Schatzi: meaning making of diaspora’, JOMEC Journal 7, ‘The Meaning of Migration’, ed. Kerry Moore. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18573/j.2015.10005

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Introduction Kosovo and the Balkans drew much For the first time, I knew who I was. attention during the 1990s predom- For the first time, I felt as if I had inantly due to the nature of the conflict been simultaneously exploded in and the ethnic cleansing that ensued. the gaze, in the violent gaze of the Studies of the Kosovo Albanian Diaspora, other, and at the same time, especially in the UK, have steadily recomposed as another emerged since the 1990s, but the (Fanon 1967: 118) number remains low and limited, mainly focusing on Kosovo Albanians as Diaspora and identity studies continue to immigrants or ‘new migrants’ (Vathi occupy a central role in social science 2013). Some important work has and cultural studies discussions around emerged, which explores Kosovo increasingly politicised issues, such as Albanian identity and integration nation, immigration and immigrants, (Kostovicova and Prestreshi 2003; Vathi migration, asylum, borders and exile. 2013). However diaspora research, While current studies have extensively especially that originating from Kosovo, explored diaspora’s nostalgia for the predominantly focuses on policy, homeland and relationship with the host remittances, homeland development and society (Safran 1991; Clifford 1994; brain drain projects (FID 2009; USAID Cohen 2001; Tsagarousianou 2004), 2010; UNDP 2012; Xharra and Waehlisch literature exploring how the homeland 2012; KAS 2013). As Levitt and Glick constructs the diaspora is still lacking. Schiller (2004) state:

‘Diaspora’ is a contested and unstable Our analytical lens must necessarily term. As Braziel and Mannur (2003) note, broaden and deepen because its etymological origins are in the Greek migrants are often embedded in term diasperien, from dia, ‘across’, and multi-layered, multi-sited trans- sperien, ‘to sow or scatter seeds’. national social fields, encompassing However, although this meaning is fairly those who move and those who stay mainstream in the contemporary behind. (1003) context, its use is also problematic – suggesting clearly demarcated geo- This article shifts the focus to examine graphic territories, national identity, and the cultural relations of Kosovan belonging and dislocation from fixed Albanian diaspora, and the meaning of nation-states, territories, or countries. diaspora for those who remain in the Such definitions may not allow for homeland as well as migrants diaspora as a self-ascription or a state of themselves. By analysing the use of the consciousness and/or social form subverted German word ‘Schatzi’ by (Sökefeld 2006; Vertovec 1997), and risk homeland Kosovo Albanians to construct falling within the same outdated and constitute the Kosovo Diaspora, I paradigms that referred to ‘race’ and explore how diaspora discourse is ethnicity (Sökefeld 2006; Anthias 1998; shaped - not only by relationships 2001). As such, experiences of the between the individual or community in diaspora/ric, outside a territoriality of the host country, but also through some kind, and, moreover, the homeland discourses about diaspora. relationships that homelands have with their diaspora have largely been ignored. 1

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Methodology relation to time and place of migration, highlighting that diaspora identity This article presents findings from construction is not only about looking analysis of thirteen semi-structured in- back to the homeland, but also about depth interviews with Kosovo Albanians the gaze of the homeland towards the in Kosovo. The interviews were diaspora. conducted during fieldwork in Kosovo between September and October 2012 I conducted my interviews in relatively and via Skype between January and July relaxed and flexible environments, which 2013. Out of the thirteen interviews enabled me to deal with unanticipated conducted, nine were with members of turns in the conversation and provided civil society – mainly those working in the opportunity for feedback and NGOs, media and philanthropic clarification of ambiguous points. I also organisations. Two interviews were chose to employ in-depth semi- conducted with Ministry of Diaspora structured interviews because I wanted officials, one with a government minister, to collect data from individuals involved and one with the leader of an opposition in civil society with significant social party. capital, and who are likely to have influence in shaping discourses about By using a critical discourse analytical diaspora. The approach also enabled me approach (CDA) to analyse my empirical to explore how the meaning of Kosovan data (Wodak 1997), my aim is not to Albanian diasporic identity is cons- search out what people ‘truly’ mean or tructed, both through relating personal feel, but rather, from a social experience and other kinds of story constructivist perspective, to investigate about the diaspora. As Seidman (2006) how certain positions and ideas about puts it: Kosovan diasporic identity are constructed as ‘truth’ within the texts Stories are a way of knowing. In under analysis, and to what effect they order to give the details of their may operate as discourse. (Fairclough experience a beginning, middle, 1995; Coupland et al. 1999; Jørgensen and end, people must reflect on and Phillips 2009; Wodak et al. 2009). their experience. It is this process The approach assumes that there is a of selecting constitutive details of material and productive dimension to experience, reflecting on them, discourse, which constitutes identities giving them order, and thereby and social groups (Hall 1996; Wodak et making sense of them that makes al. 2009), and enables the creation of telling stories a meaning-making knowledge in society (Weedon 1987). experience. (7) CDA is ‘critical' in the sense that it aims to reveal the role of discursive practice in The analysis is divided into three the maintenance of the social world, sections. The first section, entitled ‘The including those social relations that Urban and Rural Divide’, explores the involve unequal relations of power discursive construction of the (Jørgensen and Phillips 2009). In my ‘gastarbeiters’ – guest workers – and analysis, therefore, I highlight the political exiles. This is followed by rhetorical and discursive strategies used analysis of the discursive construction to construct and reconstruct the and representation of the Kosovo diaspora Kosovo Albanians as ‘other’ in Albanians from , , 2

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Austria and the Nordic countries as The periods of migration from Kosovo ‘Schatzi’. This word stems from a can be historically traced and divided subversion of the German word Schatz, into four distinct phases: those who which literally translates into English as migrated from the 1940s to the 1960s ‘treasure’. The word is used in German due to the brutal Aleksandar Ranković slang as the equivalent of the English security policy (Bieber and Daskalovski words sweetheart or darling. However, in 2003; Blumi 2003), those who migrated Kosovo ‘Schatzi’ carries a very specific from 1963 to the end of the 1970s connotation, around which a stereo- (Bernhard 2012), and those who started typical discourse is articulated about the to migrate from the 1980s to the early Kosovo Diaspora as a particular social, 1990s - before visas were introduced by cultural and economic group. In the final western countries for Yugoslav nationals section, a range of issues and (although illegal migration continued), perceptions about diaspora returning to and finally between 1998 and 1999 Kosovo is explored, especially with during the (Kostovicova and respect to how they are strongly Prestreshi 2003). associated with financial investments and remittances to Kosovo. Historically, Kosovo has had a very distinct urban/rural divide (Blumi 2002; UNDP 2004). Throughout , Urban and Rural Divide those who were well-educated and residing in the cities looked down on the It is widely estimated that between one- agricultural and uneducated rural in-three and one-in-four Kosovo population, and Kosovo is no exception Albanians lives outside Kosovo in what (Allcock 2002). It has been common to the Kosovo Albanians refer to as the hear references to those from the city as ‘diaspora’ (Forum 2015 2007; FID 2009; ‘Qytetar’, implying that they were an elite UNDP 2010; World Bank 2011; European class, and to the ‘Katundar’ or ‘Katunart’, Commission 2012). In the Albanian meaning those from the villages, language the word ‘diaspora’ is implying a backward, rough and synonymous with what in English would uneducated person (or simply the be translated as ‘outside’ or ‘abroad’. equivalent of a ‘hick’). This discriminatory However, if approximately one-in-three discourse has existed despite cons- Kosovo Albanians live in the diaspora – iderable mixing of individuals and ‘outside’ or ‘abroad’ – it is very likely that families, particularly amongst those every family in Kosovo has someone settling in the capital, Prishtina. It is living in diaspora. As Avtar Brah notes, important to draw attention to these diaspora is ‘inhabited’ ‘not only by those stereotypes because the diaspora of who have migrated and their Kosovo is composed of populations from descendants but equally by those who a mixture of both urban and rural areas, are constructed and represented as cities and villages. indigenous’ (Brah 1996: 181). Therefore, it is important to engage those who have From the interview data, it is evident that not migrated – the indigenous - in order destination matters in how these to explore how they imagine, perceive stereotypes play out in the homeland and construct those who did. discourse surrounding Kosovan Albanian diaspora. Respondents clearly imagine those who migrated to Germany, , 3

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Switzerland and the Nordic countries as During the interviews I asked the predominantly rural, unskilled workers, interviewees what they thought about the whereas in contrast, those who migrated Kosovo Albanian diaspora. The answers to the UK are thought of as urban city were complex, usually beginning with a dwellers, who were already well- narrative that involved stance-taking, and educated before they migrated and who the use of rhetorical and other discursive migrated due to political persecution, devices to position the diaspora in rather than for economic reasons. relation to the homeland, and into Moreover, in comparison to those specific times and historical periods of ‘thinking’, ‘intellectual’ elites who were migration. The interviewees also provided persecuted by the system and regime specific reasons they believed caused and had no choice but to leave, there is these migrations (either economic, a suggestion that migrating for economic political or a mixture of both) and reasons is negative and a personal identified specific places they assumed individual choice. that certain socio-economic groups migrated to. The first group of migrants It is well documented that migration forming this imagined diaspora were from the areas of the Former Republic of constructed as economic migrants who Yugoslavia to Western Europe increased emigrated to find employment in the during the 1990s as each one of the six West as guest workers or ‘gastarbeiters’; republics and then the autonomous the second, those who were fleeing province of Kosovo resisted the Milosevic political persecution during the late regime, which led to apartheid, ethnic 1980s and 1990s; the third, the refugees cleansing and genocide (Sofos 1996; who left during the NATO intervention in Malcolm 1998; HRW 2001; Tatum 2010; the 1999 war. Booth 2012). However, migration from Kosovo to Western Europe started before The interviewees began describing the the 1990s. In 1963 Yugoslavia legalised diaspora by providing historical the emigration of its unemployed narratives of migration, which in most nationals and they were free to leave the cases began with explaining the country and find work as ‘gastartbeiters’ migration of guest workers, or more – guest workers – in Western Europe, generally talking about economic predominantly in Germany, Switzerland, migrants from the 1960s. Indeed, there Austria, and France (Bernard was a disproportionate level of emphasis 2012). The total number of those who on describing the diaspora who migrated emigrated from the former Yugoslavia as to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the guest workers during the 1960s and Nordic countries as ‘gastarbeiters’. Other 1970s is deemed to have been around periods of migration, for example, to 1.3 million, with the participation of places such as during the Kosovo estimated to be quite small Rankovic years, 1946-1966, were largely (Bernhard 2012). The extent to which ignored. Distinct periods of migration ‘gastarbeiters’ are distinguished from linked with common destinations were asylum-seeking Kosovo Albanians in the referred to with apparent ease, construction of the ‘schatzi’ discourse is suggesting that this knowledge is drawn one question that this article will from a common national historical address. narrative, or a ‘regime of truth’ in the Foucauldian sense. This was generally followed by differentiation and 4

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classification of those time and also in more explicit presuppositions. For destination specific migrant groups, with example, KG uses the term ‘our examples of perceived reasons and diaspora’, which functions to position the routes of migration. For example, in diaspora in relation to Kosovo, response to my question ‘how do you constructing it both as a possession think that the diaspora is viewed by belonging to Kosovans, and – with an Kosovar society’, the interviewee KG implied power relation, favouring begins by recalling this narrative of homeland Kosovo – an entity that is diaspora separate from Kosovo. KG also suggests that those who left to work as guest KG: So as you know our Diaspora, workers were somehow incapable of we have the first wave of migrants getting jobs in what he represented as a from Kosovo were in the mid good economic climate in communist sixties, with the German Yugoslavia where almost everyone was immigration program gastarbeiters employed. In fact, at the time of the and basically this is the level of legalisation of migration to Western society that was unemployed Europe, Yugoslavia was going through a during communism which was recession; there was high unemployment something very very uncommon to and a hard currency crisis (Batović 2009; be unemployed during comm- Bernhard 2012). By the end of the 1970s unism that managed to get these Yugoslavia was attempting to bring back jobs and establish the first those migrants and developed policies of communities of Kosovo Albanians return. However, due to the constant in in Germany and so on […]. persecution of Kosovo Albanians during this period, and the common By beginning with ‘as you know’, KG persecution of those who returned from suggests that this is a well-known the West in former Yugoslavia (returning phenomenon, the understanding of migrants suspected by the security which is socially shared (although, in the services for holding democratic ideas not case of KG’s statement, it could also in tune with the communist ideology of imply that this is knowledge shared the time could be punished with amongst those who are involved in study imprisonment), it is possible that some or work on the diaspora). As Homi did not return and instead became Bhabha (1983) states in relation to political asylum seekers – a possibility colonial discourse, it could be argued ignored by KG. that the classification of the diaspora into three distinct migrant groups relies KG: The second generation is the on the concept of ‘fixity’, since a one of migrants during the nineties discursive construction reliant on basically between nineteen-ninety difference as well as rigidity is present in and nineteen-ninety-five and then the language and narrative of homeland the third generation is the one of Kosovo Albanians. This includes the use the war refugees of nineteen- of stereotypes to indicate taken-for- ninety-nine […] granted meaning that cannot be proved, but which is presented as ‘in place’ and Although KG in his account provides a ‘already known’. How this stereotype very clear description as he attempts to operates can be found both in subtle define the diaspora, he subsequently linguistic features of KG’s statement, and 5

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states that this is difficult because it is HA: […] the key is to I think, uh, now a mixture of many groups: look at the different phases when diaspora is made. So I think up to KG: So it’s very difficult to define 1989 it was purely [telephone Kosova diaspora right now, even if interruption] So I think it was we focus on one particular country purely two types of diaspora or one particular region because it people, one which was basically an its consisted of three different economic, ah, or incentives for generations of migrants who now becoming diaspora were econ- have a hybrid community omic […] or the one would be the established and it’s really difficult political asylum seekers, or people to draw any kind of general who left the what was Yugoslavia conclusions. at that time because they were seen as a threat or were However, this complexity, according to threatened by the regime. These him, is due to ‘three different generations two groups were the majority of of migrants’, rather than, for example, the diaspora for Kosovo, and then being a result of their complex diversity in 1989 it became a mixture of in terms of age, gender, geographic and both political and economic socio-economic background within because of the measures that Kosovo and many varied places of were taken in expelling people destination as migrants. By structuring from jobs and schools that was his account of the diaspora around the done by the Milosevic regime. So idea of ‘three different generations’, it is that basically these two clear privileged, legitimised and further ‘fixed’. divisions became unified in a way As such, any pre-existing hybridity of the with the new diaspora, which I diasporic group is obfuscated, hybridity think it also, because of the instead being apparently born out of assumption of the young subsequent developments of the population could potentially diaspora in host societies ‘who now have became part of the military and a hybrid community established’. military forces that could fight the regime at that time, it was a lot The idea that KG’s response taps into an more easier for young people to already fixed stereotypical, ideological get out get a passport and get out and historical framework through which in Europe but not only. the diaspora are seen is further supported by the account of another This historical narrative not only interviewee, HA. Opening with the constructs binaries between those who statement that there are ‘phases of when left for economic reasons and those who the diaspora is made’, his narrative also left as political asylum seekers, but also reifies the temporal, or generational conforms to a linear narrative structure grouping of migrants. The two main implying a continuous process with a motivations for migration he suggests, specific beginning, middle and end. economic and political, are later amalgamated due to the Milosevic HA also differentiates the diaspora by regime: country of destination, stating that the urban educated migrated to the UK,

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whereas the rural uneducated migrated development in Kosovo not to other parts of Europe: necessarily has become a main- stream but you see successful HA: Also what is, I think individuals, which come back and characteristic for UK diaspora is also connect to Kosovo from UK that a lot of urban population diaspora. moved to UK. Which was not the case in other parts of Europe, This type of classification of the diaspora which mostly was a rural diaspora, reveals the perceived social layers people that moved from rural through which these distinctions are areas […]. embedded and linked to host-country place of residence. Specifically, those Despite a lack of clear official data about who are from the UK are constructed as those who migrated to the UK, the urban-educated by nearly all the assumption that most were educated interviewees, as another, XHR, states in and urban might be explained by the his reflection on Kosovan diaspora absence of guest worker agreements integration: between the UK and Yugoslavia (since the guest workers or ‘gastarbeiters’ were XHR: I mean that as far as it the ones who were rural and concerns my perception, in UK in uneducated). However, as the following London especially, uh, emigrated extract from HA’s interview shows, the most people from Prishtina mostly. distinction ‘urban (educated)’-‘rural (un- While people, uh, people from educated)’ is also important in terms of surroundings from villages emig- the value judgments attached to the rated to Switzerland and Germany diaspora, especially in terms of their where they already had a cousin, perceived contributions to the homeland: or father or somebody older living. But a part of that, I do have a HA: […] you can see the influence feeling that British society and of the urban diaspora on the policies are more inclusive to cultural social life in Kosova when newcomers. They gave more they either back for a longer opportunities for the diaspora to period or for a temporary kind of get included to their life. I don’t interim period of their stay in know schools, work whatever, sort Kosovo. That influence is easily of they do not feel neglected or seen in music for example, that like Third World, as they do in has emerged in during the Germany and Switzerland. transition in Kosovo, and the designs and architecture, that a lot DP: OK, so you think there is more of educated UK diaspora tried to discrimination in Germany and support development and I think Switzerland perhaps? you can also see a lot of very unique very expert or what do you XHR: Exactly call the, uhm, deficit in terms of the human capital that Kosovo The extract suggests that the UK is had. In terms of planning and responsible for producing a more educ- management, which still I guess ated diaspora with the ‘opportunities’ because of other complexities of 7

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and ‘inclusion’ that are supposed to exist In these responses, a historic narrative of in the UK, as opposed to in Germany and migration provides the structure through Switzerland. While emphasising the which the complexity and diversity of the notion that the UK diaspora is more Kosovan Albanian Diaspora is reduced educated and likely to become more so, and simplified into familiar binary the perception that those in Germany categories of urban v rural, educated and Switzerland must be less educated vuneducated, gastarbeiter v political and necessarily less integrated in their exiles and integrated and un-integrated. host societies is revealed. The following section demonstrates how this framework of understanding Similarly, another interviewee, VC, diaspora from the homeland provides suggests that the UK Kosovo Albanian the conditions of possibility for the Diaspora has integrated well in the UK construction of the stereotype ‘schatzi’. because it is well-educated and urban:

VC: […] Of course in UK it’s more specific because of the quality of The Schatzi migration there. Predominantly people who left for UK were from The use of the word ‘schatzi’ in Kosovo the cities, from Prishtina or from originates from a subversion of the the big cities, and this has had an German word Schatz, which is literally impact on their interaction to translated into English as treasure. The Kosovo and with our national word is used in slang German as the cause so to say. So it is a more equivalent of the English words specific Diaspora, it cannot be sweetheart or darling. As such, in Kosovo compared with the one in ‘schatzi’ is subverted and used as a Germany, where we’ve had bigger familiar trope, a rhetorical device, which waves of migration that have generates meaning in a new subverted started from seventies, sixties and context. The word ‘schatzi’ relates a very then seventies and eighties. The specific meaning, intended to signify a same goes for Switzerland, particular social and economic group in whereas in in UK it’s a more recent the Kosova Diaspora and their Diaspora and it’s a Diaspora that relationship to homeland. ‘Schatzi’ is predominantly comes from the used alongside the English words of cities and from Prishtina. So that endearment, ‘honeys’ and ‘darlings’, as a makes the relationship more similar trope, having entered the specific. They are most of them are to describe diaspora integrated in the societies they live stereotypically. Following the example of in, you don’t see an Albanian street ‘schatzi’, the terms of endearment in London the way you have a ‘honey’ and ‘darling’ are also subverted in Pakistani or a, I dunno, a Chinese their meaning when used by homeland or, uh ah, you don’t have an Kosovo Albanians to construct and Albanian quarter in UK, or whereas ‘other’ the diaspora, especially those who in Germany you, although you reside in the UK and US. don’t have a quarter, you have a neighbourhoods where the entire As the extracts from the interviews show, street is populated by Kosovar ‘schatzi’ is a well-established stereotype Albanians. used in the language of Kosovo

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Albanians as a discursive and rhetorical The binary differences between those device to generate meaning when who are diaspora in ‘England’ and referring to diaspora from continental diaspora in ‘Germany’ here are Europe, but more specifically from represented as very evident, discursively Germany and Switzerland. For example, a fixed through an appeal to transparency certain social hierarchy is signified as (‘you immediately know that they are one respondent describes the difference schatzis…’) and to the legitimising force in ‘fashion styles’ between what she of collective cultural practice (‘…we call perceives as the ‘diaspora in England’ them schatzis from Germany and and the ‘diaspora in Germany and Switzerland…’). As van Dijk notes, such Switzerland’: expressions of group discourse ‘expresses not only individual opinions, XHR: I might touch upon one of my but rather socially shared professions, like design, diaspora representations’ (1992: 115). Yet there in England is very well, uh how to was also a reflexive awareness amongst say, uh, has fit very well in the respondents about the role of ‘schatzi’ English England’s fashion styles, discourse in stereotyping sections of the while for example diaspora in diaspora differently: Germany and Switzerland, whenever you see them in BL: […] but then you know people Prishtina or other cities of Kosova here have stereotypes about the you immediately know that they diaspora depending on like where are schatzis, we call them schatzis they’re coming from, you know, so from Germany and Switzerland like you have the Schatzis from because they mostly wear white Germany, you have you know, so it things. They can be linen shirts or really depends where you’re trousers, they are white, from their coming from you know, in terms of socks and shoes are white. So like what, what kind of stereotype whenever our, uh ah uh… our in Kosovo you are gonna fit as. Plaza becomes white, we know that it is because of diaspora from DP: Do they have one for the ones Germany and Switzerland. that come from the UK? Although when we talk about diaspora in England they have BL: Definitely, the like the diaspora much better cultivated taste when from the UK is considered more it comes to dresses, they are like a bit more stu- snobby, stuck influenced by best fashion up, you know, but a bit more designers, they care about their creative, intellectual you know […] quality of life, they enjoy beautiful that’s the stereotype about the dresses and they care about it. diaspora from the UK. And that’s They are influenced very much by like referring to the generation that new fashion trends. Which we left during the 90’s […] but more cannot say, at least I cannot say like the early 90’s. Whereas like the about people who live in Germany, diaspora from Germany, you know, Switzerland or other European they you they, oh they are just like, countries. quote ‘katunar’ you know, like ‘Schatzis’ and what not, it really depends on what country they are 9

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coming from, and you know, the interviews, issues of power and social diaspora from the US, it’s like inequality emerge, especially as different … kind of like stereotype strategies of positioning one’s you know so, I think I think that’s association with those diaspora who are actually very interesting because more positively perceived become the people like have mostly evident. For example, a respondent who families… the UK you had, you works in civil society but also as a had more like individuals kind of fashion designer suggests that she only like leaving Kosovo, like on an has a clientele that is intellectual and individual like basis you know and UK-based rather than uneducated and going to the UK, whereas in like Germany-based: Germany, you have like huge like families like all together, and XHR: Lately we had those reunions emigrating to like Germany or […] it always depends you know Switzerland you know? (DP: hmm) what style designer has and with and then in the in the US most of what sort of people one works. My the like the moving to the US hap- clients are usually mostly happened like during 1999, […] intellectuals, and this is why I was also then, that is a different working lately mostly with those generation, because they did coming for school reunions here in experience the 90s you know, so Kosova. And they usually needed it’s very interesting to look at what improvements in dresses, which point and how these people left they already purchased in in Kosovo and I think that that is a London. determining like a stereotype for those people when they come XHR clearly positions herself with the back to Kosovo as well. ‘intellectual clientele’, but she also suggests why the diaspora require her BL acknowledges that diaspora services. In stating that the UK diaspora stereotypes are differentiated by the come for school reunions, she again migrant’s country of destination, stating emphasises education as a that the UK diaspora are considered distinguishing factor, in contrast to those ‘snobbish’ and ‘stuck up’, as well as who might, for example, need outfits for ‘creative’ and ‘intellectual’. A contrast is weddings, which are not constructed as drawn between the large family groups intellectual events. For the latter, stereotypically associated with migration religious identity and practice is to Germany and Switzerland (corres- emphasised as a key characteristic: ponding with perceptions about rural populations in Kosovo, where larger DP: And what about those from families are assumed to correlate with a other places like in Germany? lack of education), and migration to the UK as a more individual venture. Indeed, XHR: Other places it is usually for it is perhaps not surprising that an image marriages, because during of diaspora more in keeping with summer in Kosova is marriage neoliberal norms for global mobility seasons, this season is changing a (individualised, educated and profession- bit, it is influenced by Ramadan, alised) might be expressed with more (DP: OK) Ramadan this year starts I positive connotations. Throughout the don’t know whether beginning of 10

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July, and that’s why there are not their mentality. They earned too many weddings, they do still money, they are richer much exist, and that had an impact richer than they were but their because no one here organises quality of life has not changed. I weddings without the confirmation sort of have feeling that they are of their whole family including not, they have not changed, their diaspora. So wedding dates are mentality is the same one, even usually arranged by vacations or worse their mentality is the same free days of those members of the as ours was when they left. family living in diaspora. The suggestion here that a certain By noting that she does not quite know entrenched, traditional ‘mentality’, when Ramadan begins, XHR distances impervious to cultural influences, herself from the more religiously functions to mark the distinction constructed diaspora from Germany. between rural ‘schatzi’ and others in Although XHR relates her direct essentialist terms. Whilst the UK experience working with diaspora, she diaspora’s ‘mentality’ is open and also draws on culturally-shared amenable to influence ‘by culture and by ideologies and a dominant hegemonic daily life’, the German and Switzerland discourse which represents and group remains pathologically entrenched reaffirms existing social power structures in pre-migration modes of thought. valuing professional, intellectual, individual practices over traditional, It is worth noting that the interviews cultural, group activities such as involving officials from the Ministry of weddings or religious periods and Diaspora denied the existence of the festivities (Van Dijk 1995). ‘schatzi’ stereotype. One junior official’s approach was to subvert the ‘schatzi’ The ‘schatzi’ stereotype appears in such trope, arguing that since ‘schatzi’ in accounts to be positioned in relation to German means treasure, what people more positive perception of the UK mean when they call someone a ‘schatzi’ diaspora, further emphasising the is to express an appreciation of their negative connotations of diaspora in value. Furthermore, a more senior official Germany and Switzerland. Asked narrating his own migration to specifically about the public image of Switzerland during the 1980s noted how, seasonally returning Kosovo Albanians despite having lived previously in a rural from the UK diaspora, XHR asserts: area of Kosovo, he was a political exile, returning to Kosovo after the war to work XHR: It is very personalised, I in the Kosovo government. Drawing upon personally do have respect for personal experience to offer an those coming from the UK, oppositional narrative that clearly because I have the feeling, contradicts the ‘schatzi’ stereotype, because as I said it’s not only for represents an important strategy of fashion, but they are influenced by resistance, but one which remains culture and by daily life there. vulnerable to dismissal as an exception While diaspora in, let’s say to the rule, and which does not subvert Germany or Switzerland, those are the structure of dominance so devaluing most distinguished ones, uh, have the identity of guest workers labelled as not changed much especially in ‘schatzi’. 11

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that has been built individually and Cash cows then as a collective versus Kosovars who live in here, so it’s a Money is strongly associated with the very very complex I would say Kosovo Albanian Diaspora, and diaspora relationship that everyone tries to remittances continue to be a key avoid the debate therefore you resource (FID 2009; USAID 2010; UNDP exclude them by identifying them 2012; Xharra and Waehlisch 2012; KAS with some with a term that literally 2013). It is estimated that the diaspora puts them as less. I don’t think it’s infuses the Kosovan economy with a class issue, it’s a more ident somewhere around 500 million euro labelling them with something that each year. This was a strong theme in makes them less equal with the interview responses, and as one Kosovars, even though they are the interviewee stated, ‘Over and over again, source of funding and the money they are seen as cash-cows’: for families and society.

HA: I think this connects with what Another interviewee, SB, who was only I was just saying. I think that the seventeen when she came to the UK in fact that diaspora has been 1990 as an au pair, elaborates the issue supporting mostly their families of sending money home from the and making at one point even one position of the migrant, ‘I was the only third of the budget of Kosovo, in a person from my family to leave Kosova way their identity became money, and due to the Milosevic regime which we identified them and we feel and dismissed all Albanians from state lived with them through money the institutions, I was the only member of my relationship of the money, and I family to have an income and support think that there is a lot of humour my parents and siblings back home’. that has come out of the idea or the ana – analysing the relation- In fact, even the government is trying to ship between people from the obtain more money from the diaspora, diaspora and here. So schatzi in by charging those coming from the my sense, is that in a short way diaspora with western number plates this explains ‘we love your money more money to enter Kosovo. but we don’t like the way you Nonetheless, recently there has been behave in in the society’. Which opposition to the treatment of the means there is a huge gap diaspora by the . between people who live in The opposition party Self-Determination diaspora and people who live in or Vetvendosja expressed concern about here. There is a subconscious idea the application of additional border fines that everyone that receives the that were being enforced and charged to money in Kosovo knows that is ‘compatriots from Diaspora’. In a press wrong and that immediately release from May 2011, they criticised translates into some kind of the government for ‘looting’ the Diaspora rejection of identifying them as Kosovo Albanians: schatzi that ultimately makes them lower in rank than people who After many letters and e-mails that actually receive their money. So it’s we receive from compatriots in the a huge disparity of relationships Diaspora, VETËVENDOSJA! has 12

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made an analysis of the policy contribution, whereas others suggest issues that impose charges on that they would take highly-paid jobs as foreign-registered vehicles entering ‘internationals’ because they possess Kosovo. As a result, each migrant British passports. Thus, as the two who comes to vacation in Kosovo, extracts below show, the anxieties pays twice for vehicle insurance, surrounding the return of the ‘schatzi’ once in the country of origin and vary significantly between countries of the other for the duration of their destination: stay in Kosovo. (My translation) DP: Do you think that sometimes Furthermore, according to Vetvendosja there is potential to view the UK ‘from the millions "looted" from our diaspora because of what you diaspora, only 10% is used ‘for the have said their trendiness with payment of damages’ that the diaspora fashion, their intellectualism, their supposedly cause to the roads in Kosovo cultural, their high cultural tastes, when they come for holidays during the do you think they are seen as a summer months. The rest goes through little bit of a threat, as opposed to to other budgets that are divided by the what you’ve described as the government at their discretion’. However, ‘Schatzis’ in Germany? You know it appears that as Kosovo attempts to do they seem like competition? establish itself as a new self-reliant state, this economic relationship with the XHR: No not at all, firstly because diaspora is changing, as KG states: there is a common feeling that they do not plan to come back, KG: So now how do we as they do not have reasons to plan Kosovars feel about them, well I to come, they are living a nice think that we are in the process of unstressful, not unstressful but less getting detached from our stressful life than we are, so while dependency of diaspora which was we have a feeling like when we basically created during the when we talk with and about nineties where many sort of diaspora in Germany in households had remittances as Switzerland the feeling like we are their only income of survival. Now still dealing with katunars, that we are entering a different phase feeling does not exists about and where basically it’s, uh, it’s more with Albanians in England. like things are getting things are changing […]. Perhaps the anxiety around the UK diaspora is lessened by a perception that However, a more complex discourse those in the UK do not intend to move emerges when the issues of the back to Kosovo, as VC states: returning diaspora is addressed. Because the UK diaspora is positioned as well- VC: So in UK it’s more specific, what educated and intellectual, there seem to we have seen in UK is people who be two lines of thought. One suggests have gone there to live and not to that the UK diaspora is so well integrated live and come back. I mean this is, I in the UK that they would not return, and believe, the biggest difference the other, that if they were to return, between the Diaspora in UK and some anticipate them making a positive Diaspora. 13

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Nonetheless, when those UK diaspora do diaspora are often attributed with a return, and perhaps due to the cultural sophistication and ‘mentality’ perception of the UK diaspora as ‘well- that is linked with a framework of educated’ and ‘cultured’ there is an understanding that accepts their anxiety that they return to work for integration overseas and role in the international missions which are highly ‘international’ labour market when paid, thus putting the locals at a returning to Kosova, the ‘schatzi’ more disadvantage. As the following quote generally are represented as lacking from VC shows: cultural advancement and social capital, failing to climb the social ladder in their VC: They come for jobs, but they western host countries. work here, most of them work here as British citizens, they work with Through analysis of interview data, I have international organisations OSCE, argued that the meaning of diaspora is EULEX, before UNMIK. So most of not merely dependent upon how a them have come back as Brits, migrant community closely identifies and they have the British passport, with an imagined homeland. To they keep the British citizenship, understand diaspora’s complexities also they get very good salaries. But not requires focus on the imagined diaspora many have come back to work for and its relationship(s) with the imagined local salaries and local institutions, homeland/host-land. Stuart Hall (2007), there are of course very few states that the dominant western exceptions, but this was not the discourses, which described and predominant trend and, there is differentiated between Europe and nothing wrong with it, absolutely others, used European cultural not. categories, languages and ideas to represent the ‘other’. As my analyses Conclusion demonstrate, these dominant ‘othering’ discourses are also present in the ‘Schatzi’ is not just a word, but a discourses of Kosovo Albanians in linguistic trope, embedded discursively Kosovo who represent, categorise and and ideologically in the homeland differentiate their diaspora. The inherent culture of Kosova. It functions as a heterogeneity and hybridity of diaspora stereotype to construct and ‘other’ the are not captured in ‘schatzi’ discourse, Kosovo Albanian Diaspora, especially in but instead, rather broad generalisations Germany and Switzerland. In the depending on factors such as time of language and descriptions of the migration, place of migration and ‘schatzi’, interviewees state that on the emigration and socio-economic factors, one hand, the ‘schatzi’ have worked hard are applied to classify and explain the in host countries and have earned good differences internal to the ‘schatzi’ incomes and accumulated wealth that stereotype. Thus the diaspora is has played an important role in the form imagined and actively constructed as of remittances. However, on the other ‘schatzi’ in the Kosovan Albanian hand, this ‘cash cow’ element of the homeland, but not as a homogenous ‘schatzi’ discourse has not necessarily entity, or, necessarily, entirely translated into positive social status for consistently. the diaspora. Whilst the UK-based

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