Olsi Lelaj | QSA - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Books by Olsi Lelaj
Pika pa sipërfaqe, 2015
Ky libër analizon një trajektore të modernitetit, në mënyrë të veçantë si formatohet një shoqëri ... more Ky libër analizon një trajektore të modernitetit, në mënyrë të veçantë si formatohet një shoqëri njerëzore kur shteti dhe institucionet e tij e projektojnë dhe e planifikojnë modernitetin për njerëzit dhe grupet shoqërore. Në fokus të tij është shoqëria shqiptare gjatë socializmit shtetëror apo komunizmit dhe praktikat modernizuese që shteti ndërmori gjatë periudhës në fjalë.
Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, 2019
Ndryshe nga disiplinat e tjera të studimeve me natyrë historike e albanologjike, etnografia, edhe... more Ndryshe nga disiplinat e tjera të studimeve me natyrë historike e albanologjike, etnografia, edhe pse historikisht në periferi të tyre, do të ketë një marrëdhënie të trefishtë me diktaturën komuniste në Shqipëri. Veç faktit se dija etnolografike bëhet pjesë përbërëse e monopolit shtetëror mbi dijen dhe themelohet si institucion gjatë diktaturës, materiali empirik që mbledh do ta përdorë për të legjitimuar vazhdimësinë e diktaturës. Ky libër kërkon të analizojë mënyrën shtetërore të prodhimit të dijes etnografike dhe pjesëmarrjen e kësaj të fundit në kulturën holokaustike që mëtohej ideologjikisht nga shteti diktatorial në prodhimin e një rendi të ri shoqëror.
Articles by Olsi Lelaj
Kosova Antropologjike (eds), 2020
Antropologji, 2019
Abstract The American anthropologist Carleton Coon stayed in Albania from fall 1929 until the sp... more Abstract
The American anthropologist Carleton Coon stayed in Albania from fall 1929 until the spring of 1930. The anthropometric data gathered during his fieldwork in the northern part of the country were published in The mountain of giants: a racial and cultural study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs, in 1950. A quarter-century after this publication, the Albanian Academy of Science, employed a young physician, Aleksander Dhima as a physical anthropologist in the Institute of Archeology. Until the fall of communism, Dhima would carry out anthropometric measurements in order to “verify” the relation between the living Albanians and their dead ancestors in the quest to unfold the nation’s ethnogenesis. This article further explores the work of both anthropologists and questions the “naturalization” or “biologisation” of national identities emerging from the discourse of physical anthropology on Albanians during the XX century.
Keywords: physical anthropology, national identities, race, ethnogenesis, Albanians
Antropologji, 2019
Abstract The following article raises a number of questions about the way(s) how an anthropology... more Abstract
The following article raises a number of questions about the way(s) how an anthropology of modernity can provide a useful analytical tool for Albanian studies to further understanding the role of the national hero in society and culture. Drawing on the work of Domenic Boyer and Claudio Lomnitz (2005) for an “anthropology of the intellectual” and Deborah Poole’s (1997) invitation to understand the “visual economy” of modern societies, the theoretical and empirical outline presented here invites researchers to investigate the relation between the national hero, the state, intellectual populist ideologies and everyday people in modern Albania.
Keywords: national hero, intellectuals, visual economy, banal nationalism
Antropologji, 2018
Abstract The article aims to locate how the concept of race was articulated by the Albanian intel... more Abstract
The article aims to locate how the concept of race was articulated by the Albanian intellectuals from the end of XIX until the mid-XX century. Through the problematization of the relation between “race-nation” in the Albanian nationalist discourses, the analyses reflect critically on the webbing of anthropological knowledge within modern ideologies and on the ways they gave legitimacy to collective representations engineered by intellectuals.
Keywords: race, nation, the intellectuals, the Albanians, modern ideologies, anthropological knowledge
Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography, 2017
L'étude du communisme par les sciences humaines et sociales albanaises est une entreprise assez ... more L'étude du communisme par les sciences humaines et sociales albanaises est une entreprise assez récente. Cet article a pour objectif d'évaluer d'un point de vue critique la façon dont le communisme est abordé, en tant que sujet de recherche, par l'ethnologie albanaise.
This article aims to explore how the term "Culture" was conceived, analyzed, and articulated as a... more This article aims to explore how the term "Culture" was conceived, analyzed, and articulated as an analytical tool in the field of ethnography during the period of communism in Albania. The discussion focuses on how Albanian ethnographers understood, read and interpreted the term "culture" both as a concept and human phenomena in their works. By drawing on data deriving from interviews with former professional ethnographers that worked at the Institute of Folk Culture and their publications, our analysis focuses on the relationship between power-(ethnographic) knowledge in "dictatorial situation".
This paper is about processes of transformation. It aims to narrate and explore Albanian's relati... more This paper is about processes of transformation. It aims to narrate and explore Albanian's relation to socialism, the latter being one of the many faces of modernity, through the concept of proletarianisation and how the working class was created during state-socialism. The diachronic approach this paper has, enables us to shed light on the specificity and dynamics of modernity and proletarianisation in Albanian society.
Special Issue by Olsi Lelaj
Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography , 2017
The articles collated in this Special Issue of Urbanities combine ethnographic evidence on situa... more The articles collated in this Special Issue of Urbanities combine ethnographic evidence
on situations, events and institutions with surveys, media reports, official documents and reviews of the relevant literature in order to present the current state of affairs and discuss processes of transformation, framing today’s urban reality into tomorrow’s projections. The cities and urban spaces in different regions of the world discussed here, also show how the city and urban space continue to be the ‘sublime object’ of ideology. Change and transformations are legitimated through competing ideological discourses by state institutions, local governments, urban planners, economic actors and citizen movements. The modern state and its legal order constitute the overarching urban context of the case studies presented here. A recurrent theme is how ideologies, embedded either in central/local government urban planning or in citizen’s social movements, are shaping and orienting the transformation of contemporary cities and people’s everyday experience
Seminars and Conferences by Olsi Lelaj
Abstract: In 1947, a small unite for ethnographic research (sektori i etnografisë) was establish... more Abstract:
In 1947, a small unite for ethnographic research (sektori i etnografisë) was established within the newly founded Institute of Science in post-WWII Albania. Over time, ethnography was established as a scientific discipline producing its own discourses on the material and non-material culture of the Albanians. Within the historical context defined by one of the harshest dictatorships installed under the banner of communist ideology of Eastern Europe, Albanian ethnographers continuously created and shaped their own research topics to respond accordingly to the totalitarian state's understanding of culture and society’s past, present, and future. After the fall of communism, Albanian ethnology articulated “itself” through freedoms and uncertainties. The latter context engenders a dual nature. Uncertainty, on one hand, seems to reflect on a “paradigmatic” level as a result of (a)the critical re-evaluations of the ethnological knowledge produced during communism; (b) the widening of both theoretical questions and research issues; (c) the opening of ethnological knowledge to national and international audiences. While this “paradigmatic uncertainty” needs to be considered as a “normal” condition for any form of scientific thought born under freedoms, the second type of uncertainty, on the other hand, emerges from the ideology of reforms flagged by a neo-liberal post-socialist Albanian state. Aiming to reduce knowledge to a functional instrument for the market, the reforms on science have been materialized into strong budget cuts for research. They were accompanied by a reduction of both academic and administrative personally. It is in this “liminal situation”, a condition produced from the collision between the ideal of academic freedoms and the disciplinary discourse of a neoliberal state, that ethnology articulate itself as a research discipline. This presentation is not intended to be simply a review of the questions and queries preoccupying ethnological research in today's’ Albanian. It rather aims to bring the audience’s attention to a larger issue: the relation between (ethnological) knowledge and State power.
The last international conference on Albanian studies was held in London in 1999 and resulted in ... more The last international conference on Albanian studies was held in London in 1999 and resulted in the celebrated volume Albanian Identities. Myth and History (2002). Nearly 20 years after this milestone, the time has come for a new meeting, which can be seen as an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in Albanian studies and to discuss results, changes of paradigms, emerging approaches and perspectives for the future. Notably, issues related to the study of practices, materiality, places and temporality, which have been and are still debated in contemporary social sciences, deserve to be discussed in relation to the Albanian context.
Around 40 scholars of various disciplines are invited to discuss these topics during a three-day conference hosted by the National Historical Museum in Tirana. The objective is to reflect collectively on current and emerging approaches in Albanian studies in order to identify future directions of research and to envisage potential collaborative projects.
Antropologji by Olsi Lelaj
Antropologji, 2019
Antropologji vol. 2, no. 2 2019 vjen për lexuesin me një qasjeje tematike, si edhe ai paraprijës... more Antropologji vol. 2, no. 2 2019 vjen për lexuesin me një qasjeje tematike, si edhe ai paraprijës. Kësaj here vëmendjen menduam t’ia kushtonim kërkimeve mbi socializmin, të cilat janë prej vitesh në fokusin e programit kërkimor të IAKSA-së. Me synimin për të zgjeruar diskutimin dhe analizat u mendua të ftoheshin edhe autorë jashtë IAKSA-së. Dëshira ishte të krijonim një pikëtakimi jo vetëm midis perspektivave të ndryshme studimore mbi socializmin, por edhe midis përvojave të ndryshme kërkimore që janë ndërmarrë nga studiues brenda dhe jashtë Shqipërisë.
Artikujt që i paraqiten lexuesit në këtë numër të revistës marrin në shqyrtim aspekte të ndryshme që kanë të bëjnë me socializmin, me situatën diktatoriale, me shtetin, trupin, botëkuptimin, artet pamore. Këto vijnë edhe si pjesë e realiteteve të caktuara që gjalluan brenda socializmit shtetëror, edhe si lexime kritike autorësh e kontributesh studimore.
Pika pa sipërfaqe, 2015
Ky libër analizon një trajektore të modernitetit, në mënyrë të veçantë si formatohet një shoqëri ... more Ky libër analizon një trajektore të modernitetit, në mënyrë të veçantë si formatohet një shoqëri njerëzore kur shteti dhe institucionet e tij e projektojnë dhe e planifikojnë modernitetin për njerëzit dhe grupet shoqërore. Në fokus të tij është shoqëria shqiptare gjatë socializmit shtetëror apo komunizmit dhe praktikat modernizuese që shteti ndërmori gjatë periudhës në fjalë.
Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, 2019
Ndryshe nga disiplinat e tjera të studimeve me natyrë historike e albanologjike, etnografia, edhe... more Ndryshe nga disiplinat e tjera të studimeve me natyrë historike e albanologjike, etnografia, edhe pse historikisht në periferi të tyre, do të ketë një marrëdhënie të trefishtë me diktaturën komuniste në Shqipëri. Veç faktit se dija etnolografike bëhet pjesë përbërëse e monopolit shtetëror mbi dijen dhe themelohet si institucion gjatë diktaturës, materiali empirik që mbledh do ta përdorë për të legjitimuar vazhdimësinë e diktaturës. Ky libër kërkon të analizojë mënyrën shtetërore të prodhimit të dijes etnografike dhe pjesëmarrjen e kësaj të fundit në kulturën holokaustike që mëtohej ideologjikisht nga shteti diktatorial në prodhimin e një rendi të ri shoqëror.
Kosova Antropologjike (eds), 2020
Antropologji, 2019
Abstract The American anthropologist Carleton Coon stayed in Albania from fall 1929 until the sp... more Abstract
The American anthropologist Carleton Coon stayed in Albania from fall 1929 until the spring of 1930. The anthropometric data gathered during his fieldwork in the northern part of the country were published in The mountain of giants: a racial and cultural study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs, in 1950. A quarter-century after this publication, the Albanian Academy of Science, employed a young physician, Aleksander Dhima as a physical anthropologist in the Institute of Archeology. Until the fall of communism, Dhima would carry out anthropometric measurements in order to “verify” the relation between the living Albanians and their dead ancestors in the quest to unfold the nation’s ethnogenesis. This article further explores the work of both anthropologists and questions the “naturalization” or “biologisation” of national identities emerging from the discourse of physical anthropology on Albanians during the XX century.
Keywords: physical anthropology, national identities, race, ethnogenesis, Albanians
Antropologji, 2019
Abstract The following article raises a number of questions about the way(s) how an anthropology... more Abstract
The following article raises a number of questions about the way(s) how an anthropology of modernity can provide a useful analytical tool for Albanian studies to further understanding the role of the national hero in society and culture. Drawing on the work of Domenic Boyer and Claudio Lomnitz (2005) for an “anthropology of the intellectual” and Deborah Poole’s (1997) invitation to understand the “visual economy” of modern societies, the theoretical and empirical outline presented here invites researchers to investigate the relation between the national hero, the state, intellectual populist ideologies and everyday people in modern Albania.
Keywords: national hero, intellectuals, visual economy, banal nationalism
Antropologji, 2018
Abstract The article aims to locate how the concept of race was articulated by the Albanian intel... more Abstract
The article aims to locate how the concept of race was articulated by the Albanian intellectuals from the end of XIX until the mid-XX century. Through the problematization of the relation between “race-nation” in the Albanian nationalist discourses, the analyses reflect critically on the webbing of anthropological knowledge within modern ideologies and on the ways they gave legitimacy to collective representations engineered by intellectuals.
Keywords: race, nation, the intellectuals, the Albanians, modern ideologies, anthropological knowledge
Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography, 2017
L'étude du communisme par les sciences humaines et sociales albanaises est une entreprise assez ... more L'étude du communisme par les sciences humaines et sociales albanaises est une entreprise assez récente. Cet article a pour objectif d'évaluer d'un point de vue critique la façon dont le communisme est abordé, en tant que sujet de recherche, par l'ethnologie albanaise.
This article aims to explore how the term "Culture" was conceived, analyzed, and articulated as a... more This article aims to explore how the term "Culture" was conceived, analyzed, and articulated as an analytical tool in the field of ethnography during the period of communism in Albania. The discussion focuses on how Albanian ethnographers understood, read and interpreted the term "culture" both as a concept and human phenomena in their works. By drawing on data deriving from interviews with former professional ethnographers that worked at the Institute of Folk Culture and their publications, our analysis focuses on the relationship between power-(ethnographic) knowledge in "dictatorial situation".
This paper is about processes of transformation. It aims to narrate and explore Albanian's relati... more This paper is about processes of transformation. It aims to narrate and explore Albanian's relation to socialism, the latter being one of the many faces of modernity, through the concept of proletarianisation and how the working class was created during state-socialism. The diachronic approach this paper has, enables us to shed light on the specificity and dynamics of modernity and proletarianisation in Albanian society.
Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography , 2017
The articles collated in this Special Issue of Urbanities combine ethnographic evidence on situa... more The articles collated in this Special Issue of Urbanities combine ethnographic evidence
on situations, events and institutions with surveys, media reports, official documents and reviews of the relevant literature in order to present the current state of affairs and discuss processes of transformation, framing today’s urban reality into tomorrow’s projections. The cities and urban spaces in different regions of the world discussed here, also show how the city and urban space continue to be the ‘sublime object’ of ideology. Change and transformations are legitimated through competing ideological discourses by state institutions, local governments, urban planners, economic actors and citizen movements. The modern state and its legal order constitute the overarching urban context of the case studies presented here. A recurrent theme is how ideologies, embedded either in central/local government urban planning or in citizen’s social movements, are shaping and orienting the transformation of contemporary cities and people’s everyday experience
Abstract: In 1947, a small unite for ethnographic research (sektori i etnografisë) was establish... more Abstract:
In 1947, a small unite for ethnographic research (sektori i etnografisë) was established within the newly founded Institute of Science in post-WWII Albania. Over time, ethnography was established as a scientific discipline producing its own discourses on the material and non-material culture of the Albanians. Within the historical context defined by one of the harshest dictatorships installed under the banner of communist ideology of Eastern Europe, Albanian ethnographers continuously created and shaped their own research topics to respond accordingly to the totalitarian state's understanding of culture and society’s past, present, and future. After the fall of communism, Albanian ethnology articulated “itself” through freedoms and uncertainties. The latter context engenders a dual nature. Uncertainty, on one hand, seems to reflect on a “paradigmatic” level as a result of (a)the critical re-evaluations of the ethnological knowledge produced during communism; (b) the widening of both theoretical questions and research issues; (c) the opening of ethnological knowledge to national and international audiences. While this “paradigmatic uncertainty” needs to be considered as a “normal” condition for any form of scientific thought born under freedoms, the second type of uncertainty, on the other hand, emerges from the ideology of reforms flagged by a neo-liberal post-socialist Albanian state. Aiming to reduce knowledge to a functional instrument for the market, the reforms on science have been materialized into strong budget cuts for research. They were accompanied by a reduction of both academic and administrative personally. It is in this “liminal situation”, a condition produced from the collision between the ideal of academic freedoms and the disciplinary discourse of a neoliberal state, that ethnology articulate itself as a research discipline. This presentation is not intended to be simply a review of the questions and queries preoccupying ethnological research in today's’ Albanian. It rather aims to bring the audience’s attention to a larger issue: the relation between (ethnological) knowledge and State power.
The last international conference on Albanian studies was held in London in 1999 and resulted in ... more The last international conference on Albanian studies was held in London in 1999 and resulted in the celebrated volume Albanian Identities. Myth and History (2002). Nearly 20 years after this milestone, the time has come for a new meeting, which can be seen as an opportunity to assess the changes that have occurred in Albanian studies and to discuss results, changes of paradigms, emerging approaches and perspectives for the future. Notably, issues related to the study of practices, materiality, places and temporality, which have been and are still debated in contemporary social sciences, deserve to be discussed in relation to the Albanian context.
Around 40 scholars of various disciplines are invited to discuss these topics during a three-day conference hosted by the National Historical Museum in Tirana. The objective is to reflect collectively on current and emerging approaches in Albanian studies in order to identify future directions of research and to envisage potential collaborative projects.
Antropologji, 2019
Antropologji vol. 2, no. 2 2019 vjen për lexuesin me një qasjeje tematike, si edhe ai paraprijës... more Antropologji vol. 2, no. 2 2019 vjen për lexuesin me një qasjeje tematike, si edhe ai paraprijës. Kësaj here vëmendjen menduam t’ia kushtonim kërkimeve mbi socializmin, të cilat janë prej vitesh në fokusin e programit kërkimor të IAKSA-së. Me synimin për të zgjeruar diskutimin dhe analizat u mendua të ftoheshin edhe autorë jashtë IAKSA-së. Dëshira ishte të krijonim një pikëtakimi jo vetëm midis perspektivave të ndryshme studimore mbi socializmin, por edhe midis përvojave të ndryshme kërkimore që janë ndërmarrë nga studiues brenda dhe jashtë Shqipërisë.
Artikujt që i paraqiten lexuesit në këtë numër të revistës marrin në shqyrtim aspekte të ndryshme që kanë të bëjnë me socializmin, me situatën diktatoriale, me shtetin, trupin, botëkuptimin, artet pamore. Këto vijnë edhe si pjesë e realiteteve të caktuara që gjalluan brenda socializmit shtetëror, edhe si lexime kritike autorësh e kontributesh studimore.