Paper short abstract:

This research focuses on the (im)mobility enfolded within the emergent tourism industry in the northern Albanian mountains, examining how the concept of home shifts through migration and commodification and how tourism creates and unsettles the possibility of future life among these communities.

Paper long abstract:

“Democracy came and people left, because what is there to do here?” This question was posed to me in 2017 by a resident of Curraj i Epërm, a village in the northern Albanian mountains. Curraj, like many other villages in the region and, indeed, the country as a whole, experienced a massive period of out-migration following the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, largely spurred by a bleak outlook on the feasibility of a future life in the country.

However, over the past decade, the influx of tourism into Albania has provided one answer for many regarding what there is to do, a trend that has drastically increased with the explosion of tourism Albania, especially the so-called northern “Albanian Alps,” has witnessed in the last two years. Consequently, many have begun converting their homes into bujtina, or guesthouses, predominantly funded by money earned abroad.

While this increased tourism has sparked a seeming revitalization for many communities in the northern mountains, its development has been ostensibly uneven, as evinced by the case of Curraj, whose community-funded road was washed away last summer, thereby excluding the village from the country’s record-breaking tourist season.

This research focuses on the unique interplay of mobility and immobility enfolded within the emergent tourism industry in the northern Albanian mountains by centering the concept of home and how it shifts through migration and commodification. Furthermore, it examines the uneven development of tourism and how it creates and unsettles the possibility of future life among these communities.