The impact of rural emptiness on gender relations in postsocialist Albania

Sally Heather Brooks; Merita H. Meçe

doi:10.1111/soru.12416

The impact of rural emptiness on gender relations in postsocialist Albania

Sally Heather Brooks, Merita H. Meçe

Social Policy and Social Work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This paper explores impacts of dramatic levels of outmigration from Puka, a remote region of northern Albania. Since 1991 depopulation, economic decline and state withdrawal have created conditions of what Dzenovska calls rural emptiness. Drawing on focus group discussions with women from eight villages, it explores how conditions of rural emptiness have led to a transformation of gender contracts, with women taking on additional responsibilities. However these changes have been accommodated within a re-traditionalised patriarchal system through the devaluation of tasks assigned to women, their increased surveillance by male relatives, and erosion of women’s social life outside the household.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	268-286
Number of pages	19
Journal	Sociologia Ruralis
Volume	63
Issue number	2
Early online date	21 Dec 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12416
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

© 2022 European Society for Rural Sociology. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

Keywords

Albania
migration
gender contracts
rural emptiness
informal care
postsocialism

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10.1111/soru.12416

Brooks_Meçe_Sociologia_Ruralis_2022
© 2022 European Society for Rural Sociology. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.
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Cite this

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The impact of rural emptiness on gender relations in postsocialist Albania

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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