Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Chapter 2 • Annie Lafontaine<br />
From refugee to local staff<br />
This last experience, made possible in the environment of post-war<br />
Kosovo, occurred for Suzana and also for Liljana, a 19-year-old Albanian<br />
woman from Pristina. The change both added to their strength in the wake<br />
of the conflict, and left them in an ambiguous social position. Their intermediary<br />
status prevented them from incorporating the entirety of their<br />
wartime experience into the normative discourse of suffering, as this collective<br />
recollection had formed quickly around the fighting and displacements<br />
of 1998 and 1999. They were thus able to express the deeply solitary<br />
experience of being a refugee only as part of a different collective<br />
narrative.<br />
For both Suzana and Liljana, the experience of being a refugee defied<br />
description:<br />
“Well, the same word [refugee] is a bad word”, said Suzana, “just thinking<br />
of that word is like … I didn’t believe that before… I didn’t believe<br />
to my brothers who are living in England and Sweden… I didn’t believe<br />
that, it is very hard to describe it… being like occupied but not… the only<br />
thing that is good on this is that you are not afraid, you don’t hear<br />
helicopters, you don’t hear bombardments but everything is still there,<br />
because you could have been a refugee also inside Kosova… as soon as<br />
you leave your home, you are a refugee, you were not able to go in town<br />
but it is not good when you feel that you are out of your country, and if<br />
you have fun it’s not like fun, when you buy something it’s not like you<br />
are happy when you buy something, even the coffee is not the same.”<br />
Like Suzana, Liljana began describing her experience as a refugee, without<br />
being able to do so:<br />
Well, you cannot describe it. It is awful, very hard to be like that. The<br />
name can show you, you know, R.E.F.U.G.E is like the worst thing in the<br />
world, so it is something that you cannot describe… you don’t have any<br />
power and you don’t have anything but your soul, your body and nothing<br />
else. This is very difficult and very hard for everybody. Even for the<br />
people who accepted refugees it was very hard … every time you feel<br />
like you are not you … So, every day you feel empty, you feel … I mean<br />
it’s just very hard; without any power, without nothing.<br />
Like hundreds of young Kosovar Albanians, Suzana and Liljana began<br />
working as local staff within the international organizations which served<br />
the refugee camps of Albania and Macedonia, and which escorted the<br />
returnees to Kosovo in the summer of 1999. With this job, their status<br />
dramatically changed. They acquired a role and a daily activity that was<br />
70