Post-war Kosovo landscapes in Pristina: discrepancies between language policy and urban reality

Abstract

This paper focuses on the complex nature of post-war multilingual landscapes in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, as shaped by the country's political shift after independence in 2008. We aim to contribute to this sociolinguistically underexplored territory through an examination of the relative predominance and visibility of the capital's most dominant languages: Albanian, Serbian, and English. Our central aim is to empirically problematize the shared co-officialdom of the Albanian and Serb languages, as put forward in the “Ahtisaari Plan” in 2007 and subsequently adopted in the State Constitution in 2008 and Language Laws in 2006 and 2008. We posit that the multilingual language policies which paint an inclusive, multi-ethnic picture of Pristina do not coincide with its monolingual Albanian reality. In addition to these empirical findings, our second aim is to contribute to the theorization of authorship in the public sphere. With reference to the Pristina context, we problematize the analytical categorization conventionally made between top-down and bottom-up agency and distinguish a third category of semi-official authorship. This third category enables us to examine the dynamic nature of the discrepancy between Kosovo's language policy and Pristina's urban linguistic reality in more detail.

Inconsistencies and Adjustments in Language Policy: Evidence from the Linguistic Landscape

“…Taken together these trends with respect to MSA show a preliminary picture of how policy about languages can be inconsistent with the linguistic situation on the ground. The discrepancy observed between policy and practice in this context confirms trends in the LL literature (Demaj & Vandenbroucke, 2016). The LL of Tunis and La Marsa are indicative of linguistic adjustments taking place (Ramamoorthy, 2002).…”

Symbolic identity building, ethnic nationalism and the linguistic reconfiguration of the urban spaces of the capital of Pristina, Kosovo

“…With reference to Kosovo, thus far, a number of studies have linked certain facets of the built environment with the political, ethnic and/or socio-economic transformations of the country. In the area of LL research, Demaj and Vandenbroucke (2016), Vandenbroucke and Demaj (forthcoming) and Demaj and Vandenbroucke (forthcoming) have examined the linguistic configurations of Pristina through different lenses and with various thematic topics. Demaj and Vandenbroucke (2016) examine present-day discrepancies between language policy and practice in the LLs of the capital of Pristina against the post-war socio-political shift of the territory.…”

“…In the area of LL research, Demaj and Vandenbroucke (2016), Vandenbroucke and Demaj (forthcoming) and Demaj and Vandenbroucke (forthcoming) have examined the linguistic configurations of Pristina through different lenses and with various thematic topics. Demaj and Vandenbroucke (2016) examine present-day discrepancies between language policy and practice in the LLs of the capital of Pristina against the post-war socio-political shift of the territory. Another LL study by Vandenbroucke and Demaj (Vandenbroucke and Demaj, 2022) similarly focuses on the transgressive dimensions of space as a place where ethno-political contestation is voiced through dialogically layered graffiti inscriptions.…”

“…Similar to other post-Yugoslav contexts, the international community in Kosovo has attempted to achieve ethnic reconciliation between the Albanians and Serbs by 'forgetting the past,' and thus recreating a shared future in a public space accessible by all its citizens (Ismajli, 1991;V Krasniqi, 2014). On the other hand, the aspirational ideology of the Albanian elites that epitomizes the present-day 'Albanianness' of Pristina ipso facto contradicts with more recent urban, and global LL phenomena befitting the multiethnic view conjured up by the international community (Demaj and Vandenbroucke, 2016). Instead, the makeover of Pristina from a pre-war Yugoslav space to one dominated by the Albanians is the result of ethno-political, demographic and ideological shifts (Albertini, 2012;Krasniqi, 2013).…”

Commemorative city-texts: Spatio-temporal patterns in street names in Leipzig, East Germany and Poznań, Poland

“…Not surprisingly, the most vivid turnover in the commemorative landscape can be found at the cusp of changes in state ideology, when a political regime gives way to a different regime. Case studies in post-communist societies such as East Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Moscow, Kyiv, Pristina, and Warsaw illustrate the dramatic renaming processes that in the early 1990s swept the toponymic landscapes of these cities as a result of power shifts and ideological-political reorientation (Azaryahu 1996; Foote, Toth, & Arvey 1999; Light 2004; Karolczak 2005; E. Palonen 2008; Sloboda 2009; Pavlenko 2010; Azaryahu 2012:389; Borowiak 2012; Majewski 2012; Demaj & Vandenbroucke 2016). 2 Whereas this research has accrued a wealth of knowledge on the ways in which commemorative (re)naming can be recruited as a powerful mechanism to overwrite collective memory during times of political transformations, the majority of linguistic landscape and critical toponymy 3 research is historically and geographically narrow, limited to city centres and focusing on denominational choices in one particular regime or on the basis of a short period of time (Pavlenko & Mullen 2015; but see Tufi 2019).…”