Back in Prishtina!

Skanderbeg Statue, Prishtina City Centre

I'm finally back in Prishtina! Or, to put it more accurately, I've been here for about a week and have just now found some time to write this post. Here, I'll recap some of my experiences over the past week and a half, although some things, such as Kosovo's still-contested election, will be explored in greater detail later on. Sufficed to say, it has been an eventful 11 days since leaving for Prishtina on 3 June.

I first traveled to Prishtina in March 2013, when I visited the city as part of my Masters programme at the interdisciplinary Durham Global Security Institute, located at Durham University. We spent about a week there, visiting people and organisations involved in Kosovo's reconstruction and statebuilding. Through this experience, I gained an interest in Prishtina's politics, leading me to conduct my dissertation research there during summer 2013 on communication and Kosovo Albanian identity. Following the course's conclusion, I embarked on a PhD programme in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, also at Durham University, and I began to plan for a year of fieldwork in Prishtina on rhetoric and political action.

After months of background research and paperwork, as well as a bit of language training, the day had finally come on 3 June when it was time for me to begin my third journey to Prishtina. Asked by others how I felt, I would reply that I felt 70 percent excited and 30 percent nervous. By the time 2 June approached, it's safe to say that the ratio had changed to 60 and 30. I will leave you to guess which number refers to “excited” and which to “nervous.” However, for better or worse, the day had finally come, and it was time for me to move on to the next chapter.

Having finally finished packing and saying some last minute goodbyes (apologies to those I couldn't reach), I made it to Newcastle for a Scandinavian Airlines flight from Newcastle to Copenhagen. The flight was nice, although the plane's white noise included that of a small child. Arriving in Copenhagen at about 10 pm, I made my way through the Danish mass transit system towards a hostel in the city. Having realised through experience that I cannot sleep in airports, I had booked a bed for the 10 hour wait until my next flight. I'm afraid I can't really say too much about the hostel except it was clean, because I got there a little after 11.30 pm and only stayed 8 hours.

I left at 8 am the next morning, 4 June, for a slightly longer flight, touching down at Prishtina International Airport at roughly 11 am. After a short taxi journey, I then rather anticlimactically made it to the city centre with my two pieces of luggage, one of which marked “heavy” and weighing 22 kilos (48 pounds). After making quite a spectacle with my luggage for two hours, I found the White Tree hostel with the help of a friend I made last summer.

Located near the city centre, the hostel proved to be an amazing location for me to settle for the first few days. Its staff were friendly and the hospitality was excellent. After staying there for about 5 days, I moved to a flat in the Dardania area rented by a friend whom I met at the White Tree. The flat more than satisfies, considering my rather simple needs, and having an Albanian roommate is proving to be a great experience.

Mother Teresa Blvd., Prishtina City Centre

With my formerly precarious living situation resolved, I am now free to concentrate on my actual research. This, of course, is a slightly overwhelming experience, because I have an entire city to work in. Where to start, what to cover, who to talk to? Well, these questions have proved fairly easy to answer, because Kosovo's recent parliamentary elections prompted me to focus my initial efforts on observing political action in public spaces. For the next couple of weeks, I will be building on this work visiting public spaces throughout Prishtina and describing them in my notes in order to generate a broad bank of data for later use. 

In addition to my ongoing participant observation, I am also learning Albanian in order to better understand both the people here and events happening around me. For those of you who are unaware, Albanian occupies its own distinct branch of the Indo-European family. Therefore, some aspects, such as its vocabulary, are completely different from other European languages and difficult to understand at first. Luckily enough, the large number of Prishtinalis who speak English means that I can begin my work without being able to speak Albanian, and, because of its Indo-European roots, many of the words used are similar to those found in other languages. Additionally, the language contains sounds and (some) sentence structures familiar to English speakers. As a result, learning Albanian isn't proving too difficult so far, especially with the help of people I've met here. 

Overall, I would say that my first week and a half here in Prishtina has been successful, and I am looking forward to the upcoming year. In my next posts, I will discuss my methodology in more detail and reflect on Kosovo's recent elections before moving on to other themes. Given this blog's participatory nature, please feel free to comment below, email, or Tweet if there is something you would like to see or feel I should include. Thanks for reading, and you will hear more from me again soon!