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- Blog ! . All commentaries will be published here. [24.10.06]

- The AppleTree.Poem about understanding. [21.09.05]

- To-stemthet. Poem about togetherness. [15.12.04]

- Transforming Ethnic Nationalism - the politics of ethno-nationalistic sentiments in Kosovo published here in full version (205 pages) in PDF format. [31.05.03]

- Is Kosovo Modern Enough? Article written for the JAVA Magazine. [19.04.02]

- Field Research in Conflict Societies - Methodological Problems. Article for the Post-Graduate Student's Year Book 2002. [08.04.02]

- The Potential of the 'Kosovar' Identity in Transforming Ethnic Nationalism in Kosovo. Paper presented at the Popular Culture Association Conference in New Mexico, USA. [14.02.02]

- The concept of Ethnicity, State and Nationalism applied on Kosovo. Written for JAVA in Kosovo. [28.01.02]

- Chapter 1 - Introduction of thesis on "Transforming Ethnic Nationalism" Draft v. 3.1 [22.01.02]

- Transformimi i Nacionalizmit Etnik-Bashkimit Etnik si dhe Mundësia e Paraqitjes së Identitetit 'Kosovar' [Transforming Ethni Nationalism and the Formation and Potential of the 'Kosovar' Identity]. Published in JAVA Magazine in the Albanian dialect 'Gheg' (as spoken in Kosovo) [02.01.02]

-The Norwegian Language Debate. Written for JAVA magazine in Kosovo that promotes the usage of the Northern Albanian 'Gheg' in Kosovo as opposed to the official Albanian language in Albania.

- Dynamic Classification of Ethnic Incorporation. Revitalising Handelmann's table in order to see changes in ethnic incoporation. [17.12.01]

- Transforming Ethnic Nationalism Draft paper (v.2.9) Published for Public Review (17 p). [16.12.01]

- Photos from six months stay in Kosovo working for the OSCE [16.12.01]

- The usage of the Albanian Flag in Kosovo - traces of transformation in ethno-nationalistic sentiments? One of the key points in my thesis. [April 2001]

- Albansk Nasjonalisme og ideen om Stor-Albania: en oppklaring av albansk regional politikk i Serbia, Makedonia og Kosovo [Albanian Nationalism and the idea about 'Greater Albania': analysing the regional albanian politics in Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo].[April 2001]

We live in a global economy - ATTAC too! Comment about the recent development of the ATTAC movement. [16.04.01]

- Popular Patriotic Songs in Kosovo. Some of the most popular modern songs in Kosovo today translated into english (preliminary translation). [December 2000]

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Personal Web sites are a tool for self-presentation in a world without prescribed social statuses

Maintainance of such a site is an activity of self-indulgement over own personal achievements aiming at gaining social mobility and cultural capital.

This article is written for JAVA Magazine in Kosovo, January 2002.

Ethnicity, State and Nationalism

The academic debate on Nationalism and Ethnicity is most well known for the discussion between Ernest Gellner and his student Anthony Smith, both who has published numerous books and articles on the subject. The core idea of Gellners work is that the Nation-State is a product of modernity and that nationalism is a general principle that seeks to keep the culture of the society congruent with the state. Although most students on the subject agree upon the latter, Smith argues that Nationalism is long rooted in ethnicity, as it has always existed, with or without modernism.

The Imagined Community

Smith has received a lot of criticism for not considering the enormous transformation that modernism has imposed on traditional societies. This has ignited a discussion that focuses on what changes a modern and post-modern society has brought in culture and peoples relation to the state and their perception of themselves as a nation. A book that stands as a classic in this discussion is Benedict Andersons Imagined Community. Anderson looks at the way citizens in a modern state communicates. Since there are simply too many people clustered together in small places (cities) there is no way a single person can meet and have face-to-face interaction with even a fraction of the citizens. Therefore the community is imagined. People feel that they belong to the same community even though they have never actually met. This is an essentially different type of community from that of the traditional community, where its members meet and interact on a daily basis. The only way to communicate with other citizens in a modern state is through mass media. The mass media is however a one-way tool of communication - citizens can only receive messages. Very seldom can they talk back.

Together the citizens make up the silent majority, as Baudrillard calls it - whatever is sent out to them implode. What comes back is only readable in statistics. The state and its elite control the mass media and its discourse, and maintain therefore the image of the imagined community for its citizens. Nationalism, the sentiments aroused by citizens in relation to its Nation-State, will therefore be in constant transformation. This transformation may base itself on ethnicity, but may also transform the perception of ethnicity and nation as such, if the state successfully does so in its own interest. It is the extent of these constant processes of transformation that Smith and Gellner argue about.  

Transition to modernity

Transition to modernism therefore means the erosion of traditional social organisation. The regime of the elderly (where social memory is the key capital of wisdom in social relations) is taken over by the regime of the educated (with skills to handle complex organisations and technologies). The power of landlords and land owners (in an economy based on agriculture) is subdued to the power of industry-owners and investors controlling mobile capital (in modern marked economies). A constant development in technologies secures a steady increase in efficiency and production output – combined with marked competition it makes control over technology a key issue and reassures the regime of the educated who masters it. Modernism creates an anonymous society that allows people to work together following formally defined roles, while family relations and its ascribed statuses irrelevant. If traditional identity based upon family relations and face-to-face interaction is preserved at the end of such an extensive process of transformation, it is not the identity as it was historically that is preserved, but a transformed perception of it, partly constructed by a high culture elite with pragmatic political purposes.

Such an assumption is taken by the very influential British historian Eric Hobsbawm, who in his book The Invention of Tradition shows how the Western-European states constructed perceptions of national traditions throughout the 19^th century. Norway were one of these states - its high culture, inspired by the French revolution, went to the countryside to find traditional costumes, poetry and fairy tales to create a unique national identity that differed from that of Danmark whose regime in Norway had just ended. In Norway, the national identity is felt as natural and deeply rooted in ethnicity. But history shows that the construction of the Norwegian national identity was a conscious process with a clear political programme.

Good governance and supra-ethnic identity

It should not be too difficult to place Kosovo in this scheme of development. It is political and economical interests that determines the direction that the politics of identity takes. The drive behind the Kosovo-Albanian politics until today has been to oppose a Nation-State in which Albanian identity had no place (and its subsequent oppression). The result was ethnic mobilisation and politics based on regional ethno-nationalism. Today this major opposition and threat is gone, and the political interests have thus changed. These political interests constantly affects the process of reshaping peoples perception of who they are, where they came from and how they think their forefathers were (even though it is always presented as factual and timeless). The state is the most critical element in this process – its territory of control marks the outer boundaries of such an identity transformation. Today this boundary is the Kosovo provincial border and its state is UNMIK. Legal institutions operating with the consent of the people and that are perceived as efficiently serving the whole of its population - good governance - will strengthen the homogenous culture of the people it govern. In multi-cultural states (which almost all states are, but many do not admit), the state must service its population regardless of ethnicity and political affiliation and takes therefore on a supra-ethnic role (the alternative is ethnic cleansing or apartheid). It thus creates a supra-ethnic identity - the sentiments aroused by citizens in relation to its state creates a supra-ethnic homogenous culture. I look forward to visit Kosovo in the future where people refer to themselves as ‘kosovars', before they mention their ethnic identity.