Changing practices of “being together” in the transnational kin-relationships among Gorani

Ivaylo, Markov

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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501

522

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08611903501M

2019-2020/03/24/17:51:35

The article aims to study how Gorani manage family-kin relationships across space and time examining the continuities and shifts as they create and experience shared co-presence due to the developments of the migration patterns and increasingly complex transnational modes of living. The dynamics of the political, economic, social etc. environment are also considered when people’s efforts and practises of doing family and maintenance of kinship are analysed. The author proceeds from the assumption that transnational family-kin members seek and find ways to make (imagined, by proxy, virtual and physical) togetherness and to keep up their relationships viable and active across space and time. In this respect, various tools and strategies supplementing each other are used, among them - memories, imaginations, dreams, gifts, souvenirs, remittances, long-distance communication and visiting trips. The article draws on ethnographic first-hand data which is gathered due to multi-sited fieldwork in selected villages in the region of Góra (sending area) in Kosovo, on the one hand, and the cities of Belgrade and Skopje as labour and living places for many Gorani, on the other.

Gorani, co-presence, long-distance communication, transnational family, visiting trips