Back in Prishtina!

Skanderbeg Statue, Prishtina City Centre

I'm finally back in Prishtina! Or, to put it more accurately, I've been here for about a week and have just now found some time to write this post. Here, I'll recap some of my experiences over the past week and a half, although some things, such as Kosovo's still-contested election, will be explored in greater detail later on. Sufficed to say, it has been an eventful 11 days since leaving for Prishtina on 3 June.

I first traveled to Prishtina in March 2013, when I visited the city as part of my Masters programme at the interdisciplinary Durham Global Security Institute, located at Durham University. We spent about a week there, visiting people and organisations involved in Kosovo's reconstruction and statebuilding. Through this experience, I gained an interest in Prishtina's politics, leading me to conduct my dissertation research there during summer 2013 on communication and Kosovo Albanian identity. Following the course's conclusion, I embarked on a PhD programme in Socio-Cultural Anthropology, also at Durham University, and I began to plan for a year of fieldwork in Prishtina on rhetoric and political action.