The “other” is seen as a social construction, which helps the establishing of the own identity. To explore how self-identity is reconstructed through deconstructing the image of “the other”, we chose to analyze the case of migrants, who are positioned as ‘the other’ and are treated as distant from the host societies. Albanians in Italy, especially those who have experienced the exodus of March and August of 1991, are at the center of the analysis, because they were the first ones in contact with the Italian society, after the collapse of the communist regime. The secondary data from the literature review and the qualitative primary data, generated from the biographical narration of eighteen people have been used to explore the phenomenon. In order to meet this research criteria, there are some questions to be answered which will help in solving the core issues of the problem. How the boats that arrived from Albanian coasts in Italy did create the image in the plural of settled people as “the other”? Which were the strategies used by these people to deconstruct the image as “the other”? How has self-identity been reconstructed through the time? The research pointed out that the image of “the other”, as a universal process, is created more quickly under the influence of factors that make the "other" more visible, such as the massive exodus through the boats. Although the mimesis tendency was adopted in Albanian immigrants’ case, pushed by the will for a positive social identity, the coexistence with the natives helped to rebuild the perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and identities, even though self-identity is a never-ending process. Received: 2 January 2021 / Accepted: 27 February 2021 / Published: 5 March 2021
The totalitarian socialist regime, which was installed in Albania in 1945, lasting until 1990, was expressed and articulated as a consistent effort led to modernism or civilization, as a kind of “social engineering” incarnated to the inner individual and society dimensions. Fighting old and traditional mentality, the totalitarian socialist countries created the infrastructure for spreading the model of the “new man” according to new principles, aiming to make everyday life productive and disciplined. Under the implementation of the “new man” approach, especially the image of woman was reconstructed. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the ideal of the “new man” and “new woman” were socially constructed and how they have influenced the everyday life of people, under the totalitarian socialist regime, referring to the case of the Albania. 18 in depth semi structured interviews with woman and men from 55 until 85 years old have been conducted and the poetry and text songs of that time have been explored. The research showed that through the trinomen “education-work-tempering”, the “new man” and “new woman” was socially constructed. People’s social status, during the socialist regime in Albania influences their perceptions and their attachment to the “new man” and “new woman” portraits Received: 4 September 2021 / Accepted: 15 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022
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