Encountering Race in Albania - by Chelsi West Ohueri

About the Book

"Eastern Europe is often perceived as a place of racelessness but this book, the first book about race in Albania, ethnographically analyzes racialization, whiteness, blackness, and otherness against amidst the legacies of communism, ultimately illustrating how Albania helps us to understand the ways that global race and racialization operate"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Encountering Race in Albania is the first book to interrogate race and racial logics in Albania. Chelsi West Ohueri examines how race is made, remade, produced, and reproduced through constructions of whiteness, blackness, and otherness. She argues that while race is often limited to Western processes of modernity that exclude Eastern Europe, racialization processes are global, and the ethnography of everyday Albanian socialities makes visible how race operates. Historical and political science frameworks prevail in the study of post-Cold War East European societies, yet as West Ohueri shows, anthropological and ethnographic knowledge can equip scholars to ask questions that they might otherwise not consider, illustrating how racialization is ongoing and enduring in a period that she terms the communist afterlife. Encountering Race in Albania, through the unexpected optic of Albania, a small, formerly communist country in Southeast Europe, offers significant insights into into broader understandings of race in a global context.

About the Author

Chelsi West Ohueri is Assistant Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at University of Texas, Austin. Her work focuses on ethnographic studies of race and racialization, belonging, marginalization, and medical anthropology, primarily in Albania and Southeast Europe.