Hierarchies in Public Memory in post-war Kosovo: The Organisation of Memorialisation from Below
Public memory in Kosovo is commonly understood as organised primarily by state institutions at central and local levels. Yet, the role of non-institutional actors such as families and their social networks (memory from below) in shaping public memory remains largely overlooked. This article argues that families and their networks are not mere co-participants but significant actors through whom memorialisation is organised and made visible. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s framework of justice and a micro-level analysis of practices based on research conducted intermittently between 2009 and 2025, it shows how uneven access to resources and norms of sacrifice structure participation in memorialisation. In this way, it demonstrates how hierarchies of values structured around sacrifice for liberation and scale of loss in public memory are reproduced, sustained and contested, often being experienced as injustices.
Elife Krasniqi
Elife (Eli) Krasniqi is an anthropologist and writer. Her research has examined gender, family, patriarchy, social movements, and memory in socialist and post-socialist Kosovo. Her current research focuses on the historical presence of African populations in the Balkans from the late Ottoman period, with particular attention to the afterlives of domestic slavery and the intersections of gender, race, and class. Krasniqi conducted research and taught at the University of Graz (2019–2023), where she is currently a Seed Postdoc Fellow and Guest Researcher.