ABSTRACT
Since the early 1990s, the vast majority of literature on Kosovo’s statebuilding trajectory has capitalised on the Serb-Albanian conflict to create the knowledge on Kosovo, and to inform policy choices too. This ethnicisation of “the Kosovo question” has first and foremost overlooked other dimensions such as class, gender and sexuality. In addition, by positing “the Kosovo question” as stemming from binary opposites – the Serbs and the Albanians – the realms of literature and policy have established an “insignificant other”: namely, the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities (see Musliu and Orbie, 2016). Much less attention has been paid to the subject of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian women as the subaltern of all subaltern communities in post-conflict Kosovo. This chapter analyses the role of women activists from these communities with regard to the (women’s) human rights discourse, with a focus on the Network of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian Women’s Organisations of Kosovo (NRAEWOK). The first part problematises the public vs. private binary in gender studies. The public domain (societal level) and the private domain (community and/or family) are used by anthropologists to explain universal female subordination. Focusing on ethnicity, social class and identity, the second part of this chapter analyses the subordination of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian women from the perspective of the international human rights discourse in relation to Kosovo’s statebuilding trajectory.
