Kasetat e Vitit Ri (New Year's Eve Cassettes) — Popular Culture and Diaspora Consciousness

Having lost the right to a cultural archive through colonisation, folklore, which in Kosovo had traditionally served as an instrument to reiterate history, played a crucial role in maintaining and producing a common cultural identity.

Reverberating around Serbian oppression and consequently the ensuing immigration during the 1990s, the imaginary distributed through popular culture articulated in the experience of many Kosovar-Albanian migrants and refugees.

Popular culture with and beyond nationalist narratives served to develop a diaspora consciousness, allowing for a peculiar continuance - traversing the territorial borders between Kosovo and the diaspora.

In this episode, we are joined by Arbnora Selmani to discuss how popular culture, infused with nationalist and feminist empowering tones shaped the consciousness of the diaspora during the 1990s and beyond.

Intro music: North-Albanian Instrumental. Interludes in order of rendition: Shkurte Fejza - 'Xhamadani vija, vija'; Shkurte Fejza - 'Mbahu nene e mos ke frike'; Shkurte Fejza - 'E kam emrin Kosovar'; Adelina Ismaili - 'Amaneti'; Adelina Ismaili - 'Ushtrine time do ta bej me Ibrahim Rugoven'; Shyhrete & Engjellusha Behluli - 'Nuse Kosovare'; DJ Gimi O - 'Ani mori nuse'.