L'European Journal of Turkish Studies disponible en ligne sur Revues.org publie aussi quelques articles sur les Balkans. Ce fut le cas en 2006 avec un numéro dont la thématique était : "The social practives of kinship. A comparative perspective".
On y trouve deux articles intéressants notre domaine. Tout d'abord Gilles de Rapper s'interroge sur la notion de biographie en Albanie et de son utilisation politique pendant le régime communiste. il y avait en effet une classification entre bonne et mauvaise biographie, selon ses propres actes et prises de position mais aussi selon ceux des membres de sa famille. L'article est en français et a pour titre "La ‘biographie’ : parenté incontrôlable et souillure politique dans l’Albanie communiste et post-communiste". On trouve aussi dans le même numéro un article de Galia Valtchinova intitulé "Kinship and Transborder Exchange at the Bulgarian-Serbian border in the second half of the 20th century". Je vous donne le résumé en anglais des deux articles. Vous pouvez lire les articles en suivant les liens.
On y trouve deux articles intéressants notre domaine. Tout d'abord Gilles de Rapper s'interroge sur la notion de biographie en Albanie et de son utilisation politique pendant le régime communiste. il y avait en effet une classification entre bonne et mauvaise biographie, selon ses propres actes et prises de position mais aussi selon ceux des membres de sa famille. L'article est en français et a pour titre "La ‘biographie’ : parenté incontrôlable et souillure politique dans l’Albanie communiste et post-communiste". On trouve aussi dans le même numéro un article de Galia Valtchinova intitulé "Kinship and Transborder Exchange at the Bulgarian-Serbian border in the second half of the 20th century". Je vous donne le résumé en anglais des deux articles. Vous pouvez lire les articles en suivant les liens.
- Gilles de RAPPER, "La ‘biographie’ : parenté incontrôlable et souillure politique dans l’Albanie communiste et post-communiste", European Journal of Turkish Studies, Thematic Issue N°4 , The social practices of kinship. A comparative perspective, 2006
Abstract : During Communist times in Albania (1944-1991) everyone was defined, evaluated and classified through his or her ‘biography’ (biografi), which was a judgement, in political terms, on one’s personality, acts and familial background. The ‘biography’ was largely responsible for the authorities’ attitude towards the individual. In this paper, I try to understand what the word ‘biography’ (and the phrase ‘good/bad biography’) meant for the people themselves. It appears that ‘biography’ is often synonymous with ‘family or lineage background’. Such an observation leads to explain, in a second step, ‘biography’ as the conjunction of a political concept, the ‘class struggle’ as it was understood by both the authorities and the people, and the family or lineage (fis) as an institution of Albanian society. Finally, the paper suggests an interpretation of ‘biography’ in terms of ‘purity’, ‘stain’ and naturalisation of differences.
- Galia GALTCHINOVA, "Kinship and Transborder Exchange at the Bulgarian-Serbian border in the second half of the 20th century", European Journal of Turkish Studies, Thematic Issue N°4 , The social practices of kinship. A comparative perspective, 2006
The paper explores the nature and the varieties of transborder encounters on the Bulgarian-Serbian border during socialism and the first post-socialist decade. It offers some facts, and analyzes processes showing what happens when family and kinship have been politicized and manipulated, both on the level of existing structures and as symbols. A historical sketch and an overview of the local structures of kinship provide avenues for understanding the importance of the uses of kinship in a border society and the discourse of ‘being the same kin’ with people on the other side of the border. The ritual and effective uses of kinship in the peculiar conditions of State socialism are analyzed in the second part of the paper. The third and most lengthy part is dedicated to the post-socialist transformations in the visions of kinship and to some patterns of the use of kin in the context of ‘liberal market’ economy. I hope having shown that the visions of how to ‘use’ of family ties – and whether to use them, or not – could considerably change over time, especially when there was an ideological and political pressure to do this. Thus in late socialist period, the ideology and images of kinship were used by the communist State in order to counter practices like black market or border petty trade that could not be dissolved in the ideological dogmas. The moralization and politicization of kinship promoted under socialism, but also in the pre-communist period, had an impact on the development of transborder trade in recent years: in lieu of the expected ‘ethnic’ networks based on a working kin system, the booming transborder trade and smuggling led to the constitution of trans-ethnic networks between ethnic Bulgarians and local Roma. The latter assumed the tasks that both the discourses of kinship and the socialist value system tended to blame as shameful. The recent developments under review call for a more careful consideration of what kind of ‘family’, for what kind of ‘networks’, are used during a post-socialist transition.
