Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena

Dr Carolin Leutloff-Grandits

Fellow Carolin Leutloff-Grandits

April - December 2015
Mail leutloffgrandits(at)gmail(dot)com

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits will be a fellow at the Imre-Kertész-College from April to December 2015. As a researcher at the Centre for Southeastern European History and Anthropology of the University of Graz she has conducted research about two topics: "The Family in Kosovo revisited", which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (2010-2014) and the Austrian Research Liaison (2009-2010), and "Kinship and Social Security", which is funded by the 6th framework program of the European Union (2005-2007). She has taught social anthropological core themes at various universities, including the University of Vienna, the University of Zagreb, the University of Prishtina and the Humboldt University of Berlin. She completed her dissertation at the University of Halle/Saale in 2005 in the form of a PhD positionat the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Prior to that, Ms. Leutloff-Grandits studied social anthropology, history and philosophy at the University of Freiburg, the University of Edinburgh and the Free University of Berlin.

Research project at the Kolleg

During my fellowship at the Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena I will work on the completion of my book "Families and Solidarity in a Translocal Space: The Case of Kosovo-Albanians from Opoja". In this work, I will look at migration as a strategy of social security in Kosovo, particularly due to an extremely high unemployment rate of around 50 percent with the state offering very little social support. Migration has already been shown during Socialism-Eras. Since the 1960s, mainly male family members worked in Western European countries and many families integrated migration in their everyday life and future perspective. In my book I deal with the ways families were transformed against the backdrop of social changes in Kosovo, particularly during and after the war in the 1990s, and of the migration regime of the European Union. Topics like the subsequent immigration of family members, multi-local and transnational household strategies, marriage migration and undocumented migration are of central relevance. Based on this, I investigate the transformation of generational and gender relations as well as family belonging and family solidarity in a transnational space. The transnational and translocal perspective on family and social security enhances our understanding of Europe and of increasing mobility and globalization. The work is based on qualitative, social-anthropological research financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), which I conducted in the region of Opoja in southern Kosovo as well as in Austria and Germany. Research conducted in Opoja in the 1980s by the social anthropologist Janet Reineck will be referred to as a comparative framework.

Main areas of research

  • Transnationalism, Translocality, Migration and Mobility
  • Social Security
  • Family and Kinship
  • Borders in Europe and Europeanization
  • Ethnic and Social Conflicts, Violence
  • Property relations
  • Post-Socialism, Post-Cold War Era

Positions and memberships

  • InASEA (International Association for South Eastern European Anthropologists): committee member and treasurer
  • DGV (German Association for Social Anthropology): member, deputy of the Working group "Migration"
  • EASA (European Association for Social Anthropology): member
  • SIEF (International Society for Ethnology and Folklore): member
  • COST EastBordNet: Remaking Eastern borders in Europe: committee member (2008-2013)
  • Ethnologia Balkanica (Scientific Journal): editorial board member
  • Studia Ethnologica Croatica (Scientific Journal): advisory board member

Monographs

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Claiming Ownership in Post-War Croatia. The Dynamics of Property Relations and Ethnic Conflict in the Knin Region (Münster, London: LIT Verlag. Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia, Volume 9, 2006).

Edited volumes

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Anja Peleikis and Tatjana Thelen, eds, Social Security in religious networks. Anthropological perspectives on new risks and ambivalences (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2009).

Hastings Donnan, Madeleine Hurd and Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, eds, Border crossings, moving borders. Divisions, Passages and Thresholds in European Borderlands (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016 (in preparation)).

Articles

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Transnationale Ehen durch die Linse von Gender und Familie: Heiratsmigration aus Kosovos Süden in Länder der EU. IMIS Heft 47 (2015): 163-193.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Migrantisierung und Entmigrantisierung der Familie: Ein kritischer Blick auf Migration aus dem Kosovo in die EU. In: Berliner Blätter 65 (2014): 62-76.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Kinship, Community and Care: Rural - urban contrasts in Croatia. Ethnologie francaise, Vol. 42 (2012,1): 65-78.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Contested citizenship between national and social rights in post war Knin, Croatia. Sociologija 4 (2008): 371-390.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Wedding festivals as events of cultural transformation: Migrant weddings in a Kosovar village, in Albanian transitions from contemporary and historical perspectives, ed. by Robert Pichler (Berlin and Wien: Lit, 2014), 135-162.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Ethnic Unmixing in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Successor Wars: The Integration of Co-Nationals in Former Yugoslavia in Comparative Perspective, in Co-Ethnic Migration Compared. Central and Eastern European Contests. Edited by Jasna Capo Zmegac, Christian Voss and Klaus Roth. (2010), 139-163.

Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, Croatia's Serbs Ten Years after the End of the War, in Croatia since Independence. Edited by Sabrina Ramet, Konrad Clewing and Reneo Lukic (München: Oldenbourg, 2008), 141-167.