To the Northwest! Intra-Yugoslav Albanian migration

Researchers have explored many aspects of Albanian migration so much so that one renowned scholar of the field, Russel King, described Albania as a laboratory for the study of migration and development. Despite the large number of studies examining the experience of Albanian migrants in countries like Greece, Italy and Switzerland (and the impact of migration in the towns and villages in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia) one crucial part of the story is missing. What about the many Albanians from Kosovo (and Macedonia) who migrated within Yugoslavia during the socialist period in considerable numbers? Albanians were the largest non-Slavic population in Yugoslavia, reaching up to 8 per cent of the population by the 1980s. Predominantly rural in origin, Albanian labour migrants gravitated to industrial centres around the country in search of work. This three-year research project explores the case of Albanian labour migration from the Southeast of Yugoslavia to the countrys northwest (Croatia and Slovenia) between 1953 and 1989 through historical and historical-anthropological methods. The first research objective of the research is to provide a historical survey to show how the migration of Yugoslav Albanians to Croatia and Slovenia was facilitated and understood by the authorities. The second objective explores how the local communities in Croatia and Slovenia understood and managed the migration. Most importantly, the third objective explores how migration was understood by the Albanian migrants themselves. The fourth and final objective is to compare intra-Yugoslav Albanian migration to the better-documented socialist-era Yugoslav migration to capitalist Western Europe as well as Yugoslav rural-to-urban migration trends. Methodologically, the research relies on the analysis of library and archival documents and extensive oral history interviews. Oral history will be undertaken by the project researchers in two case study sites of Albanian migration in Pula, northwest Croatia, and in Velenje, central Slovenia. The project engages with recent scholarly innovations in SEE studies of race, ethnicity, class, gender and the interaction of these categories of identification in a research paradigm of intersectionality. It hypothesises that the experience of migration for Albanians was shaped by a range of factors including religion (Islamic, Catholic or secular), gender (male or female?), place of origin (rural or urban?), and political orientation (loyal communist or nationalist sympathiser?). These categories intersect, resulting in different material outcomes for the individuals concerned. The goal of the research is to carefully unpack these outcomes. The research contributes to debates in the fields of Southeast European migration history and Yugoslav historiography. More broadly for migration studies, the empirical case offers an instructive example of cross-cultural migration taking place within state borders in a context of socialist modernisation.

"To the Northwest! Intra Yugoslav Albanian migration (1953-1989)" ran from 2020-2024 at the Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz. Led by PI Rory Archer with project researcher Mladen Zobec, the research term explored the phenomenon of the domestic migration of Albanian citizens of Yugoslavia. Although the scholarship on Albanian international migration is extensive, very little research examines the migration of Yugoslav citizens of Albanian ethnicity within the socialist federative state. This project has remedied this gap in the literature by examining Albanian labour migration from the Yugoslav Southeast (Kosovo, Macedonia) to the northwest of the country (Croatia and Slovenia) between 1953 and 1991. The project team triangulated field research in libraries, archives and through oral history interviews with Albanian labour migrants and their families in Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo and North Macedonia. The empirical material gathered suggests that Albanian intra-Yugoslav migration was widespread from the 1950s onwards and involved hundreds of thousands of people. It tended however, to be institutionally invisible and largely occurred through private initiative leading to chain migration. While individual migrants cited economic reasons as a push factor, political coercion (most notably during Serb minority rule in Kosovo until the mid-1960s and again following the student demonstrations in Kosovo in 1981) played an important role. In the final years of Yugoslav socialism, Albanian labour migrants in Slovenia and Croatia became increasingly politicised and their ambivalent attitudes towards the Yugoslav system resonated in the dominant political climate in the Yugoslav Northeast where Serbian centralism as espoused by Milošević was being challenged. As many Albanian individuals found work in the private sector of the socialist economy, their work and life courses were typically external to the Yugoslav party state and the institutions of self-managing socialism which prioritised productive labour in the social sector of the economy. Indeed, as social sector workplaces were central to the provision of welfare and political rights, Albanian labour migrants who were over-represented in the modest private sectors of Slovenia and Croatia were de facto excluded from full participation in self-managing socialism. Instead, many of them continued to rely on the security and support offered by ethnic and family networks. In this regards, the concept of 'socialist ethnic economy' was theoretically developed by the researchers to illuminate how a part of the Albanian migrant labour force found alternative ways to participate in Yugoslav socialist modernity. The project researchers, Archer and Zobec, have published a number of articles based on this research in journals including Nationalities Papers, Südost-Forschungen, and Labor History. Their respective PhD and Habilitation dissertations are derived from the project research and are due to be defended in late 2025 at the University of Graz.