Kosovo-Kosova : a discourse analysis of the Albanian political thought during the period 1990-1999

The object of the essay is the study of the Albanian side in the conflict between the Albanians and the Serb by analysing the political discourse of the Albanian elite in Kosovo. The formu-lation of the research object is based on the theoretical assumption that human conduct does not contain meaning in itself. Its meaning is decided by the interpretations that are available in the language, i.e. in the discourse. Therefore, in order to understand the done and the possible, the alliances, solidarity, mobilisation and a host of other movement processes, it is necessary to study the meaning that the subject attached to their actions. Foucault defines this strategy as “to ask politics what it had to say about the problems with which it was confronted…. The positions it takes and the reasons it gives for this”. Therefore, the meaning constructed by the Albanian elite in Kosovo shall be deconstructed in order to reveal how different discursive formations constructed competing realities concern-ing the definition of the conflict, the possible solutions and the means to achieve these politi-cal solutions. The knowledge constructed by these discursive formations was served as behav-iour norm and served to shape and guide the behaviour of the Albanians, i.e. it produced power outcomes/effects. The first chapter is dedicated to methodology and begin with a critique of positivism and sub-jectivism in favour of a poststructuralist/postmodernist methodological approach. Discourse analysis is one of these approaches, which tries to mediate between the naturalistic and hu-manistic perspectives. The central concepts in discourse analysis are discourse, knowledge, and power. Discourse is defined as “historically variable ways of specifying knowledge and truths, whereby knowledges are socially constructed and produced by effects of power and spoken in terms of truth”. Power is “a productive network which runs through the whole body, much more than a negative instance whose function is repression”. Knowledge speci-fies “what is morally, socially, and legally un/acceptable at any give moment in a culture”. Discourse contains power because it establishes knowledge. Foucault argued that power and knowledge reside in a circular relation. They are inextricably enmeshed because they focus on the same human beings and their behaviour. Wetherell et al define discourse analysis as the study of meaning-making as revealed through discourse, i.e. how knowledge is constructed and revealed through discourse. The goal of the discourse analysis is to reveal the premises of meaning, how these premises are combined to form knowledge, to effectuate power and influence the human behaviour and actions. Dis-course analysis does not focus on the truth and its validity, but on the conditions, the discur-sive regime that produces and exercises the truth. The essay does not study every discourse, but it studies a particular dossier inside the Alba-nian discourse. Dossier is a case, an affair, an event that provided the intersection of dis-courses that differed in origin, form, organisation and function. These discourses that form discursive formations confront each other, compete with each. Further, the essay studies the discourse as a process in order to trace the changes in the knowledge that was constructed in different phases of the conflict. Discourse analysis relies on a multiple sources of evidence. However, in this essay, I have used only written texts. Foucault considered text as the most important discursive data. First, writing is the most important technology to convey meaning. Second, texts have a fixed source and supply the public with readymade meanings. The forth chapter gives a short description of the events on the ground focusing on the period that preceded the nationalist explosion in Yugoslavia. In the chapters 5, 6, and 7, I have studied and revealed the meaning that was constructed by three different discursive formations inside the Albanian elite. For each group I have shown have they constructed about the conflict between the Albanians and the Serbs. Further, I re-veal how they understood the goal of the Albanian movement and the means to achieve these goals. I have shown the moments in which these formations challenged each other. The last chapter deals with the power effects/outcomes of the knowledge that was constructed by discourse