'Across the sea and over the mountains': documenting Albanian migration

Starting in 1990, Albania has witnessed one of the great emigrations of recent times; ten years later at least 600,000 Albanians, one in five of the population enumerated by the 2001 census, were living abroad, mainly in Greece and Italy. This paper documents and interprets this mass migration, and is in four parts. The first describes the evolution of the emigration against the demographic, economic and political background of Albania's post-communist transition. The second and third parts look at Albanian migration to, respectively, Italy and Greece: topics covered include the chronology of movement; geographical distribution of the migrants; and the reaction of the host society, which has been one of stigmatisation and exclusion despite Albanians’ key contributions to the labour market. The final part of the paper explores some conceptual interpretations of Albanian migration, stressing the need for a broad synthesis which encompasses both economic and socio-cultural approaches.