Migration from Albania is both a very personally and intellectually fascinating topic for me. Over the past years, I have reflected on how much, why, in what forms people migrate, whether they should and how the individual and society should relate to this phenomenon, and how it affects them and others close and far. While I reflect on these topics plenty, I struggle to share my thoughts with others. Therefore, this blog is an attempt to communicate my thoughts, with topics oscillating between my immediate research work to my ethical reflections about migration and Albania and my private life. I dream that my work and research may contribute to Albania’s development and countries with high outmigration in at least a tiny way, and this blog constitutes part of the attempt to teach myself to think in that direction.

One inspiration for starting this blog came from a short account I read about (Western) researchers in remote parts of the rainforest in Borneo. During their research trip there in 2010 they were doing live conferences with schoolchildren, vlogging informational videos and diligently blogging to

‘offer a release for a frustrated desire to communicate [the scientist’s] work, to explain it and share it beyond academic journals’

while 130km away from the next paved road. If this was possible for them, it should surely be possible that I, living surrounded by one of the oldest, intellectually thriving, resource-packed, and outstanding academic communities in Oxford, shouldn’t do just a little bit to make my research more accessible as well. 

Similarly, at the time of writing this, I just today have been reminded of the Socratic paradox:

‘The only thing I know is that I know nothing’

and the call to ask questions to find the truth. In this spirit, I am motivated not to provide answers in an overconfident manner by any means, but to share, and to ask as I observe the world. I am keen to hear from others, and would be very happy to engage in conversation with you.