I have multiple “homes” where I spent key formative moments of my life.

I was born and raised in Tirana, Albania, experiencing the late-socialist period and the early years of postsocialist/postcommunist transformations. To this day, I miss the unique golden glow of the city’s low-rises at sunset, the busy cafes and bustling streets, and even the melancholy sadness of the rain and the quiet after the immigrant season.

I studied in Canada for six years, first at the international high-school, Lester B. Pearson College (Victoria, BC), and then pursuing a BA in Cultural Studies and Political Studies at Trent University (Peterborough, ON). Pearson College changed my life and gave me a new international family and friendships that continue to enrich my life. At Pearson and at Trent, I discovered a passion for a life driven by intellectual curiosity.

From 2001 – 2012 I lived in New York City where I completed an M.A. in Political Sciences and a Ph.D. in Anthropology, both at the New School University. While in New York, I immersed myself in the city’s multiple worlds. Among other things, I was a barista at Taralluci e Vino, an East Village coffee shop, an audio-visual technician at the International House, I taught ESL and PoliSci classes to immigrants from all the boroughs of NYC, and taught courses in liberal arts and social sciences at Eugene Lang college, Parsons’ School of Design, and the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School.

For a brief but enriching stint in southern California, I was Postdoctoral Scholar at the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, at the University of California, Irvine, where I worked with fellows from different parts of the world researching new money forms such as mobile money and digital payments among the so-called “bottom of the pyramid.”

For the past eight years, I have been working as assistant and, now, associate professor of anthropology at Ohio University. Whenever I can, I enjoy hiking the forests and caves of the Hocking Hills. Recently, I have joined the Firepit Writers’ Workshop at Two Dollar Radio cafe/independent press and am working on a few short stories.

Books

Tales from Albarado: Pyramid Firms, Value and Social Transformation in Postsocialist Albania. (Under contract with Cornell University Press.)

2018    [Co-edited With Bill Maurer and Ivan Small]Money at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Inclusion and Design. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. (The Human Economy Series, Eds. Keith Hart and John Sharp).

 

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Forthcoming    “The Magic of Pyramid Firms: Political Cosmologies, Credibility and Collapsed Finance in Albania” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology.(In Press)

2018    “Corruption, Right On! Hidden Cameras, Satire and Intimacies of Anti-corruption.” Current Anthropology. 59 (S18): S105-S116

 2017    “Pyramid Firms and Value Transformation in Postsocialist Albania.” Ethnologie Française. No. 2: 321-330.

2011    “Tales from Albarado: The Materiality of Pyramid Schemes in Postsocialist Albania.” Cultural Anthropology. 26(1): 84-110.

Book Chapters 

2018    (with Ivan Small) “Introduction: Money and Finance at the Margins.” InMoney at the Margins: Global Perspectives on Technology, Inclusion and Design.Eds. Bill Maurer, Smoki Musaraj, and Ivan Small. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books (The Human Economy Series, Eds. Keith Hart and John Sharp)

2018    “Corruption Indicators in the Local Legal/Political Landscape: Reflections from Albania. In The Palgrave Handbook of Indicators in Global Governance by Indicators. Eds. Deborah Valentina Malito, Gaby Umbach, and Nehal Bhuta. Palgrave Macmillan

2015    “Indicators, Global Expertise, and a Local Political Drama: Producing and Deploying Corruption Perception Surveys in Albania.” The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and Rule of Law.Eds. Sally Engle Merry, Kevin Davis, Angelina Fisher, and Benedict Kingsbury. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

2012    “Alternative Publics, Alternative Temporalities: Unofficial Collective Practices in Communist Albania’.” InAlbania: Family, Society and Culture in the 20th Century.Eds. Andrea Hemming, Gentiana Kera, Enriketa Papa.LIT Verlag

Editor Reviewed Journal Articles

2016    “Shtëpi Evropjane për një të ardhme më të mirë.” (European Homes for a Better Future.) Përpjekja Vol 34 (1)

2009    “Passport Troubles: Social Tactics and Places of Informal Transactions in Postosocialist Albania.” Anthropology of East Europe Review. 27(2): 157-175

2008    “Pikëpyetje Antropologjike Mbi Korrupsionin.” (Anthropological Questions on Corruption) Polis 6: Korrupsioni në Shqipëri6: 4-14

 

Book reviews

2017    Book Review of Anthropology and Economyby Stephen Gudeman. Current Anthropology58 (6): 822-823

2014    “Materialities, Politics, and Affects of Socialist and Postsocialist Homes.” Review of Politics in Color and Concrete: Socialist Materialities and the Middle Class in Hungary. By Krisztina Fehérváry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. Current Anthropology.Vol 55(6): 832-833

2002    Review of Elsie, Robert. A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology and Folk Culture. Nationalism and Ethnic PoliticsVol. 8:3

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