Narrating the ‘Liberation of Kosovo’ in Switzerland . Transnational Strategies of Boundary-Making

Abstract

Albanian-speaking migrants in Switzerland mobilized massively on behalf of the national cause in Kosovo in the 1990s. Despite this strong engagement with their homeland, however, some have felt forgotten and have been offended by negative stereotypes in Kosovo itself since the war ended in 1999. Taking a boundary-making approach, the author analyses the ways in which Albanian-speaking former activists in Switzerland have responded to their unfavourable standing, and how they have sought to improve their transnational position. She shows how former activists tend to choose between one of two narratives to describe their place in their societies of origin and settlement: either they yearn to be a part of the ‘Albanian nation’ as imagined in Kosovo; or they adopt a new model of what it is to be ‘Albanian’ in Switzerland.