Articles by Natasa Gregoric Bon
Anthropological Quaterly, 2022
Complaints about the uncertainty and instability of everyday life often emanate from mainstream A... more Complaints about the uncertainty and instability of everyday life often emanate from mainstream Albanian society, but a small number of local social entrepreneurs are seeking to overcome this prevailing thought matrix. In postulating their entrepreneurial tactics and goals, they see the mobilisation and transformation of the passive mindset (mentaliteti) of the majority of Albanians as the core prerequisite for their own economic success, as well as general well-being in the country. The paper explores mentaliteti and how it relates to entrepreneurial subjectivities, tactics, and plans. In their aim to mobilize the predominant mentaliteti, local entrepreneurs aspire to revitalize certain traditional moral norms such as responsibility. They do this by redeploying already familiar structural processes like remittances that have been important to the country's history and economy. Through their entrepreneurial plans and endeavors, this small group of individuals aims to bring back and remit specific, once important, ethical and moral values to ensure a better future for all. Both entrepreneurship and remittances are important drivers of economic and social enrichment and general prosperity in Albania today and in the future.
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https://riverchange.zrc-sazu.si/, 2022
Riverine environments is an interactive StotyMap (https://riverchange.zrc-sazu.si/) that maps and... more Riverine environments is an interactive StotyMap (https://riverchange.zrc-sazu.si/) that maps and portrays how changes and continuities of Vjosa (Albania) and Mura (Slovenia) rivers are spatialised in the riverine landscapes and embodied in the daily lives of the people who inhabit them. In the last decade, due to the golden rush on the rivers of South East Europe or the Balkans, several transnational companies, in cooperation with local authorities, are planning to build about 3000 hydropower plants on these rivers – from these, at least 10 hydropower plants on the Mura and 40 hydropower plants were planned on the Vjosa. After almost a decade of dedicated work and various actions organised by local communities, NGOs (EcoAlbania, RiverWatch, Euronatur and Balkan River Defence), scientists and other activists to protect the Vjosa River from the construction of hydropower plants, the Memorandum between the Ministry of Tourism and Environment in Albania and outdoor company Patagonia was signed on 13 June 2022. With this, the Albanian government committed to declaring the Vjosa River a national park.
Nevertheless, due to the accelerating energy crisis, several hydropower plants are still being planned throughout Southeastern Europe. Numerous environmentalists, activists and scientists (Save Blue Heart of Europe) alert, that the construction of these power plants will cause significant changes to rivers morphology and could lead to transformations of rivers’ biodiversities and landscapes and displacement of the local population. Based on the intersectional approach combining remote sensing, anthropological and geographical research,
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Moving Places: Relations, Return and Belonging, 2016
The chapter focuses on various modes of movements and non-movements of migrants who claim to orig... more The chapter focuses on various modes of movements and non-movements of migrants who claim to originate from one of the villages of the bilingual (Albanian and Greek-speaking) area in Southern Albania. It explains how migrants, through their continuous movements, generate their sense of rootedness and belonging to their natal village. Their feelings of belonging are paradoxically based on their sense of rootedness in a particular locale, as well as to their continuous movements and migrations. The chapter puts forth the meaning of location and movements which are highly significant social and historical institutions in the past and present Albanian society.
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Local Lives: MIgration and the Politics of Place, 2010
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MIGRATING BORDERS AND MOVING TIMES. Temporality and the crossing of borders in Europe , 2017
The chapter focuses on material flows, which are sporadically sent across the Greek-Albanian bord... more The chapter focuses on material flows, which are sporadically sent across the Greek-Albanian border or given to husbands who stay behind in Albania by their wives-migrants who live and work in Greece. In contrast to remittances, material flows reflect temporality, materialise interactions between migrants and those who stay behind and provide a window onto the social, cultural and economic characteristics of the destination countries. The content explains the role and meaning of these flows in migration processes and border crossings. The material flows transgress polity borders and social boundaries, reconstruct existing relationships, reaffirm marriage and create material wealth. They stand in as a material presence for absent female migrants, since they materialise the relationships between female migrants and their stay-at-home husbands. Material flows not only eradicate the spatial distance between migrant’s destination and migrants’ place of origin but also temporally collapse present and future.
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Everyday Life in the Balkans, 2019
The chapter addresses the various meanings of Europe as expressed in people’s daily conversations... more The chapter addresses the various meanings of Europe as expressed in people’s daily conversations as well as in the media and political discourses in Albania on the EU accession. It discusses the ways in which people define themselves in view of geographically, politically, and historically shifting borders. The chapter observes how people’s feelings of an uncertain and precarious present get replaced with high hopes and expectations for a better future envisioned in Albania’s accession to the EU.
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A B S T R A C T Albania has experienced one of the Europe's highest population migration rates in... more A B S T R A C T Albania has experienced one of the Europe's highest population migration rates in recent decades. At the same time, the landscape of this country has very dynamic geomorphological behaviour (erosion and ground subsidence), as an effect of various drivers. This paper examines the correlation between the population migrations and geomorphological dynamics in the wider Vlora area in Southern Albania between 1979 and 2016. In social studies and the humanities this interplay is largely unrepresented, whereas in the environmental sciences these two issues have been conceptualized as having a causal relationship. The article develops a tripartite analytic-synthetic model consisting of (A) remote sensing analysis based on automated land/water detection from satellite data; (B) demographic analysis focusing on population changes using the methods of statistical analysis; and (C) extensive anthropological fieldwork grounded on participant observation, archival work and gathering previously inaccessible statistical and other relevant data. The results of this study show that the coastal erosion or water inundation along with other geomorphological (site-specific relief, place-bound ground subsidence and water bodies distribution) and geotectonic characteristics of the wider Vlora area are inextricably bound up with the population migrations. The paper foregrounds new methodological approaches that correlate coastal or peri-coastal erosion with geomorphological, geotectonic and population movements, and provides a holistic framework that can be applied to examine this issue in similar areas elsewhere.
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RésuMé L'importance des mouvements : le cas de l'Albanie méridionale Cet article analyse les diff... more RésuMé L'importance des mouvements : le cas de l'Albanie méridionale Cet article analyse les différents modes de mouvement et de sédentarité, de mobilité et d'immobilité qui fabriquent le senti‑ ment de l'habité sur la côte méridionale de l'Albanie. Le mouvement (kurbet) et la sédentarité, telle qu'elle se manifeste dans la demeure (shtëpi) sont à la fois des institutions traditionnelles qui créent des réseaux d'enracinement au sein desquels les gens nouent des relations et des liens entre les différents lieux. Cependant on ne peut se contenter de lire les mobilités à la seule lueur des relations sociales et spatiales : il faut les lire aussi en référence aux caractéristiques géomorphologiques de la région. Au‑delà des peuples, des choses et des idées, les lieux se transforment aussi et changent de position, de sens et de valeur. Mots‑clés : Mouvement. Mobilité. Installation. Réinstallation. Albanie méridionale.
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Tourism Culture & Communication, Volume 8, Number 2, 2008 , pp. 123-134(12)
This article addresses the problem of rubbish in the coastal village of Dhërmi/Drimades in Southe... more This article addresses the problem of rubbish in the coastal village of Dhërmi/Drimades in Southern Albania. On the one hand, people's dealings with rubbish are very much a reflection of historically determined political, economical, and social relationships in the village, region, and country at large; on the other hand, rubbish negotiation have become one of the vital subjects in the process of construction and reconstruction of these relationships and the social space generally. This article explores the ways in which rubbish produces order and classifies what and who is "out of place" and what and who is "of the place." The presented accounts illustrate people's never ending negotiations over who is responsible for dumping rubbish and who is responsible for it not being removed. When talking about these issues people delineate a multiplicity of contradictions and shift the responsibility from "state" to "locality" and from "locality" to "state," from communal to individual and from individual to communal, from foreigners to locals and from locals to foreigners. All these conceptualizations are quite complex and depend on the social and cultural background of the speaker. With the expansion of tourism and related growth in owners of tourist facilities, seasonal workers, emigrants, and tourists in recent years, questions about who or what is "out of place" and who or what is "of the place" become even more relevant. While the coastal place serves as the source for this kind of negotiations, the negotiations themselves also construct this coastal place, on which local people who claim to originate from Dhërmi/Drimades situate their belonging.
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Anthropological Notebooks, XIV/2, 2008
This paper leads the reader to paths and places constructed by storytelling, remembrances,
and t... more This paper leads the reader to paths and places constructed by storytelling, remembrances,
and the biographical contexts of the people of Dhërmi/Drimades in southern Albania. By
following the people’s movements and networks of connections between the individual
places that construct the spatial relations, this paper explores the ‘cartographic optic’ as
recounted in the people’s stories. The underlying question is how different meanings of
space and place, created by individual stories, construct the ‘whereness’ of Dhërmi/
Drimades and how that ‘whereness’ constructs different meanings of space and place.
The paper argues that through remembering their ancestors’ movements and winding the
stories around their paths the local people continuously shift the village’s position and its
boundaries and in so doing they reconstruct ‘their’ space where they seek to anchor their
sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is informed by the notion of the nation-state
as a hegemonic concept on the one hand and a sense of distinct locality on the other.
Overall the paper presents the people’s conception of space and themselves in it.
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Books and Edited Volumes by Natasa Gregoric Bon
Remitting, Restoring and Building Contemporary Albania, 2021
How can mythology lead to a better understanding of water, rivers, and their environments in Alba... more How can mythology lead to a better understanding of water, rivers, and their environments in Albania? In what ways does the hydrological serpent-dragon Kuçedra dwell in Albanian waters, permeate the meaning of the “state”, and generate the relation to authority? By following the waterways of Kuçedra, this chapter delves into the multitude of entanglements between the mythical, social, political, economic, and material realms of water and riverine environments. It argues that the hydrological entity of Kuçedra and its agency bring back and restore certain archetypal structures such as the relation to authority.
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Remitting Restoring and Building Contemporary Albania copy, 2021
The edited collection is a fresh contribution to the anthropological, sociological, and geographi... more The edited collection is a fresh contribution to the anthropological, sociological, and geographical explorations of time-space in Southeast Europe and Albania in particular. By delving into various levels of people’s daily lives, such as literature, relation to the environment, the urbanization process, art, photography, trauma and remembering, processes of modernity, the volume vividly portrays various realms that are lived and perceived. It largely builds on the premise that structural resemblances of the past continuously reappear in particular social and cultural moments and seek to restore and build the individual and collective lives in contemporary Albania.
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Moving Places draws together contributions from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, explorin... more Moving Places draws together contributions from Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, exploring practices and experiences of movement, non-movement, and place-making. The book centers on “moving places”: places with locations that are not fixed but relative. Locations appearing to be reasonably stable, such as home and homeland, are in fact always subject to practices, imaginaries, and politics of movement. Bringing together original ethnographic contributions with a clear theoretical focus, this volume spans the fields of anthropology, human geography, migration, and border studies, and serves as teaching material in related programs.
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Articles by Natasa Gregoric Bon
Nevertheless, due to the accelerating energy crisis, several hydropower plants are still being planned throughout Southeastern Europe. Numerous environmentalists, activists and scientists (Save Blue Heart of Europe) alert, that the construction of these power plants will cause significant changes to rivers morphology and could lead to transformations of rivers’ biodiversities and landscapes and displacement of the local population. Based on the intersectional approach combining remote sensing, anthropological and geographical research,
and the biographical contexts of the people of Dhërmi/Drimades in southern Albania. By
following the people’s movements and networks of connections between the individual
places that construct the spatial relations, this paper explores the ‘cartographic optic’ as
recounted in the people’s stories. The underlying question is how different meanings of
space and place, created by individual stories, construct the ‘whereness’ of Dhërmi/
Drimades and how that ‘whereness’ constructs different meanings of space and place.
The paper argues that through remembering their ancestors’ movements and winding the
stories around their paths the local people continuously shift the village’s position and its
boundaries and in so doing they reconstruct ‘their’ space where they seek to anchor their
sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is informed by the notion of the nation-state
as a hegemonic concept on the one hand and a sense of distinct locality on the other.
Overall the paper presents the people’s conception of space and themselves in it.
Books and Edited Volumes by Natasa Gregoric Bon
Nevertheless, due to the accelerating energy crisis, several hydropower plants are still being planned throughout Southeastern Europe. Numerous environmentalists, activists and scientists (Save Blue Heart of Europe) alert, that the construction of these power plants will cause significant changes to rivers morphology and could lead to transformations of rivers’ biodiversities and landscapes and displacement of the local population. Based on the intersectional approach combining remote sensing, anthropological and geographical research,
and the biographical contexts of the people of Dhërmi/Drimades in southern Albania. By
following the people’s movements and networks of connections between the individual
places that construct the spatial relations, this paper explores the ‘cartographic optic’ as
recounted in the people’s stories. The underlying question is how different meanings of
space and place, created by individual stories, construct the ‘whereness’ of Dhërmi/
Drimades and how that ‘whereness’ constructs different meanings of space and place.
The paper argues that through remembering their ancestors’ movements and winding the
stories around their paths the local people continuously shift the village’s position and its
boundaries and in so doing they reconstruct ‘their’ space where they seek to anchor their
sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is informed by the notion of the nation-state
as a hegemonic concept on the one hand and a sense of distinct locality on the other.
Overall the paper presents the people’s conception of space and themselves in it.