Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Host: Regan Gillum
Guest: Dr. Chelsi West Ohueri
Episode Title: Encountering Race in Albania: An Ethnography of the Communist Afterlife
Date: September 11, 2025

Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with Dr. Chelsi West Ohueri about her book, Encountering Race in Albania: An Ethnography of the Communist Afterlife (Cornell UP, 2025). The discussion explores how race and racialization are articulated, experienced, and denied in contemporary Albania—an Eastern European nation often overlooked in global conversations about race. Dr. West Ohueri draws from her personal journey, immersive fieldwork, and insights into the historical and social fabric of Albania, interrogating the complexities of peripheral whiteness, the persistent marginalization of Roma and Egyptians, and the afterlives of communist and post-World War II racial ideologies.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Dr. Chelsi West Ohueri's Personal and Academic Journey

[02:22–10:12]

• Dr. West Ohueri did not intend to enter anthropology; her passion was ignited in an undergraduate introductory course after sociology was full.
• Her first exposure to Albania occurred through an unexpected invitation to join an ethnoarchaeological project abroad—a country she had to locate on a globe before agreeing.
• The profound isolation of Albania in the early 2000s—few had encountered black people or Western media—deeply shaped her fieldwork experience as a Black American woman.
• Her transition from archaeological survey to cultural anthropology happened as villagers' curiosity and hospitality repeatedly disrupted her research routine:
  • “I was supposed to be on these survey walks, but I kept getting interrupted... Some of the first words I learned were ‘shtippy cafe, haje, hajde’—so, ‘have coffee, come with me.’” (Dr. West Ohueri, 05:17)
• Dr. West Ohueri's own presence forced her and her interlocutors to confront the realities of race, despite many claiming Albania was "raceless."
• Initial denials of race's presence in the country, and her own repeated lived experiences of being racialized in Albania, sparked her resolve to focus on race rather than nationalism as her academic subject.

2. Theoretical Framework: Race as a Global but Locally Situated Construct

[10:34–20:30]

• Main arguments:
  • Although European countries often claim post-racial identities, Europe historically played a central role in constructing race as a concept.
  • The aftermath of World War II (notably, the response to Nazi racism and postwar socialist anti-racism rhetoric) gave rise to “post-racial” national self-images that often mask ongoing forms of racialization.
  • “Race as a concept is hierarchical and it’s a hierarchy of humanness.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 12:39)
  • Skepticism and outright denial about race’s presence are sometimes reinforced by official national statistics and policies that “don’t track race.”
• She challenges academic theories that reduce social difference in Europe to class alone, citing Bourdieu and Wacquant’s influential but limiting stance.

3. Race Denial vs. Lived Experience

[20:30–21:19]

• Dr. West Ohueri notes that her daily interactions—including proposals, conversations, and overheard remarks—demonstrate the operation of racial logic, even among those who assert there is “no race in Albania.”
• “If there really were no race, then no one would have any kind of different reaction to me.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 18:47)
• Everyday practices, language, jokes, and especially the marginalization of the Roma are key sites of racial meaning and hierarchy.

4. Ethnographic Insights: Hospitality and the “Hunger Games”

[21:19–32:41]

• Hospitality is a core value in Albania, with elaborate rituals around hosting, feeding, and welcoming guests.
• These rituals intersect with race in subtle and explicit ways—sometimes used to push back against accusations of racism, as excessive hospitality becomes proof of “racelessness.”
• Being frequently invited to homes for food and gatherings, Dr. West Ohueri observed and participated in the performative aspects of Albian hospitality:
  • “People do play a lot of games around food and eating, where it’s this performance of not eating, but then also too, as I say, eating and serving people and welcoming your guests is really key.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 22:57)
• She recounts the humor and awkwardness in these performances:
  • Memorable anecdote: At a birthday party, everyone waited until she, the guest, began eating, with a little girl eventually whispering, “Can you just start eating so that we can eat?” (30:01)
• Hospitality also has classed and racialized dimensions, as those unable to provide proper hospitality (especially marginalized Roma) experience shame and exclusion:
  • “There was a shame if people cannot welcome in the proper way... especially this would happen with some of my Roma interlocutors who did not have anything to offer because they were barely scraping by.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 24:43)
• The expectation and performance of Albanian-ness is thus deeply interconnected with whiteness, blackness, migration, religion, and changing ideas of what it means to be “European.”

5. Peripheral Whiteness and the Aspiration for European Belonging

[34:06–41:39]

• Dr. West Ohueri introduces “peripheral whiteness” to describe Albania’s simultaneous marginalization from and aspiration toward European whiteness.
• Peripheral whiteness involves both the experience of being racially marked or “not quite white” by Western Europeans, and the local performance of whiteness in contrast to groups like the Roma and Egyptians.
• Local categories such as “dorë bardhë” (white hand/side) and “dorëzezë” (black hand/side) illustrate how whiteness and blackness are actively constructed in everyday social relations—often by both dominant and marginalized groups.
• This yearning for “Europeanness” is tied to historic efforts for international recognition, aspiration to join the EU, and distancing from the Ottoman (Muslim) past:
  • “When Albania is becoming a nation-state … there are these performances of anti-Ottoman-ness, of anti-Muslimness, of gravitating toward the West... heav[ily] tied to a distancing from otherness.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 37:15)
• Some Albanians contest equating EU aspiration with a “longing to be white” and argue it's about resources and travel, but Dr. West Ohueri shows how these discourses are inseparable from constructions of whiteness.
• Peripheral whiteness also shapes how Albanians treat their own migrants in Western Europe, and how they distance themselves from groups seen as outside “Albanian-ness.”

6. Race and Marginalization: Roma and Balkan Egyptians

[41:39–49:04]

• A major focus of the book is the persistent marginalization of Roma and so-called “Balkan Egyptians”—groups whose experiences epitomize racialization at the margins.
• Dr. West Ohueri describes layered forms of exclusion: housing insecurity, lack of jobs, lack of access to health care; being forced to live outside abandoned buildings yet barred from entering them.
• The pejorative term “gabel” (wanderer/stranger) and a recurring social narrative of Roma as “outsiders” reinforce their racialization.
• Example: Flora, a Roma woman, first connects with Dr. West Ohueri by calling her “sister” because “we’re both black.” Yet Flora later distinguishes herself as “really white” by family origin, complicating notions of self-identification and imposed racial categories. (42:49)
• Roma are frequently blamed for their own marginalization ("they're not fit to live here") and experience both structural and normalized violence and discrimination.
• State rhetoric emphasizes Albania’s “tolerance,” especially religious pluralism, but Dr. West Ohueri highlights that Roma remain exceptions to this ethos:
  • “Albanians do talk a lot about tolerance and welcomeness, but that is not extended to Roma populations... I would watch people be physically assaulted, kids be physically assaulted, and it was very normative.” (Dr. West Ohueri, 47:03)
• Roma and Egyptians have distinct but often conflated experiences; the book devotes a chapter to unpacking these divisions and terminologies.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|--------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:17 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “I kept getting interrupted. Some of the first words I learned were, ‘shtippy cafe, haje, hajde’—so, ‘have coffee, come with me.’” | | 12:39 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “Race as a concept is hierarchical and it’s a hierarchy of humanness.” | | 18:47 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “If there really were no race, then no one would have any kind of different reaction to me.” | | 22:57 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “People do play a lot of games around food and eating, where it’s this performance of not eating, but then also too, as I say, eating and serving people and welcoming your guests is really key.” | | 30:01 | Regan Gillum | "[A]t someone's house...everyone was talking, but they were waiting for you to eat. To start eating, because you're the guest. And the little girl says to you, 'can you just start eating so that we can eat?'" | | 24:43 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “There was a shame if people cannot welcome in the proper way... especially this would happen with some of my Roma interlocutors who did not have anything to offer.” | | 37:15 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “When Albania is becoming a nation-state … there are these performances of anti-Ottoman-ness, of anti-Muslimness, of gravitating toward the West... heav[ily] tied to a distancing from otherness.” | | 47:03 | Dr. Chelsea West Ohueri | “Albanians do talk a lot about tolerance and welcomeness, but that is not extended to Roma populations... I would watch people be physically assaulted, kids be physically assaulted, and it was very normative.” |

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:22: Dr. West Ohueri’s academic and personal background
• 10:34: The irony of Europe inventing race but denying its existence
• 12:39: Race as hierarchy and history in Europe
• 18:47: Evidence of race in everyday Albanian life
• 21:19: Hospitality, the “Hunger Games,” and racialization
• 30:01: Story—hospitality, food, and the wait for the guest to eat
• 34:06: Introduction and explanation of “peripheral whiteness”
• 41:39: The Roma, Balkan Egyptians, and processes of marginalization
• 47:03: Limits of Albanian “tolerance”—Roma as outsiders

Overall Tone and Style

Dr. West Ohueri’s narrative is deeply personal, reflexive, and ethnographically rich, blending humor and humility with a critical, incisive approach to theories of race, identity, and European belonging. Regan Gillum’s hosting style is supportive, inquisitive, and brings out both the personal stakes and theoretical contributions of the work.

For Further Understanding

• Dr. West Ohueri’s book is recommended for an in-depth understanding, particularly for her nuanced treatment of Roma and Egyptian identities (see chapter 4).
• The episode is a valuable resource for scholars of race, European studies, anthropology, and anyone seeking to understand how notions of race operate outside Western "canonical" contexts.
• Challenges listeners/readers to rethink assumptions about the “absence” of race in Eastern Europe and to see race as both globally constructed and locally realized.

End of summary.