Albanian And Western National Identity Discourse In Post-War Kosovo

Within the context of post-structuralist discourse analysis two basic discourse have been identified as ongoing processes in post-war Kosovo. The central texts for the two major discourses: Albanian national identity discourse and the Western discourse were explored in order to demonstrate the identity dichotomies of the Self and the Other. These mutually dependent dichotomies were found to be fundamental for the stability of the discourses. The Albanian national identity was found to be constructed through negative process of differentiation with ‘the Turkish Other’ and with ‘the Serbian Other’; while it carried out a positive process of linking with ‘the European Other’. The ‘Kosovar’ identity was revealed to be a construction within the Western discourse towards the Balkans, characterized by the influences of Orientalism, Balkanism, development-colonial discourse and Enlightenment discourse.